Redeeming Spike's Butt
by Valerie X
Summary: After S6, Buffy is shocked when Spike returns and he's...pretty much the same. B/S with Dawn-bonding.
1. Part One

Redeeming Spike's Ass

by Valerie

After Season 6, Buffy is shocked when Spike returns and he's......pretty much the same. S/B with Dawn friendship. Angsty, humorous, and eventually sweet sweet Spuffy fluff. Say that ten times fast. Spoilers for finales of both BtVS and Angel. 

Thanks to my sister Jean, my own Peanut partner. 

Visit my site We Band of Buggered -- http://www.bandofbuggered.com

PART ONE

Sometimes, Buffy thought, when you fall in love, it's like getting hit. Love just smacks you in the face with a right hook and makes you all dizzy, so that you can't even think straight. And you do stupid things like wander around cemeteries hoping he'll show up, or cry and not kill him when he turns evil.

But sometimes falling in love is more cerebral. You watch the person, study them, mentally list why they'd made a good boyfriend, and eventually, logically conclude that yes, this is love, because it makes sense for this to be love. And the entire process, while seeming sweet, all the doe-eyed stares and gentle kisses in place, is so cold and clinical that when he goes to a vampire whorehouse, none of your friends seem surprised.

But sometimes, she thought, the *right* times, love is just seeing someone. Just looking across your dining room table and realizing that, though you've spent years looking at this person, though you've touched them and kissed them, you've never really seen what they mean to you, never really known all the beautiful things they have deep inside of them. They were always either annoying, burdensome, barely tolerable, or simply an embarrassment. But once you see them, love creeps into you slowly. It's not a sudden realization, but a gradual feeling, entering without acknowledgement or words, so that when you look at them, when you finally *see* them, it's almost a surprise that you love them.

But not really.

"Peanut, bitch."

Buffy threw her cards down and scowled across the table at her sister. "You have to be cheating."

Dawn smiled wickedly as she gathered together the piles of cards at the center of the table. "If that's what you need to tell yourself to keep your fragile self-esteem intact, whatever."

They'd been playing peanut, a combination of solitaire and insanity, almost every night this summer. The goal of the game was to get as many cards as possible into the center piles while simultaneously organizing your own cards using the rules of solitaire and getting rid of all the cards in your "peanut" pile, the move that ended the hand, after which cards in the center were assigned points and tallied. The real challenge was getting your cards to the center piles before your opponent did, a maneuver that usually resulted in frantic movements, vicious shoving, and the sharing of many creative insults.

They'd begun keeping score at the end of May. Now, at the beginning of August, Dawn had 4,863 points to Buffy's 3,292.

"I have super slayer speed," Buffy said with a pout. "But you still always get your cards down first."

"It's called skills," Dawn said as she sorted and counted the cards. "I have skills, and you have none."

Buffy dismissed this with a shrug. "At least, if we keep having money problems, you could always be a card shark."

"Twenty-two for me, eight for you," Dawn said, writing the points down of the ratty piece of looseleaf paper nearby. "And I so totally could be a card shark," she added proudly. "I won almost every game of poker I played with Spike."

Ouch.

"Are we still wincing about him?" Dawn teased.

"Shut up and deal," Buffy said with a teasing smile. "I'm about to catch up, I know it."

"Yeah, you might catch up. Right around my college graduation."

"Slut."

"Skank."

"Bitch."

"Gigantic monkey whore." Dawn smirked at her sister's hesitation; she'd won this round of insults. There was just no way to top 'gigantic monkey whore'.

Buffy took her deck of cards and began laying out the piles in front of her that would begin the new hand. "So, Saturday, Bronze. Anya's in. What about Mandy and all them?"

"Mandy's coming, but not Janice, because I am so totally over Janice," Dawn said.

"Good," Buffy agreed. "I've been over her for a while. No one should be allowed to own that many belly shirts."

Dawn nodded in agreement. "There should so be a law." She lifted the first card off her peanut pile, preparing to flip it. "Ready?"

"Yes - no, wait!" Buffy held up her empty glass. "Out of Pepsi."

Dawn groaned. "I'm so having a caffeine overdose."

"Switch to sugar?" Buffy suggested, and Dawn grinned widely.

The late-night peanut games were a ritual now. Every day this summer they'd slept in, spent the late hours of morning preparing overly elaborate breakfasts, hung out with Anya (the only Scooby in town for the summer) and some of Dawn's friends, went out to the Bronze, went out to the cemetery, and paused in their newfound friendship only when Buffy had to work a shift at the Doublemeat Palace.

When they got home each night around twelve, too wired for sleep and too worn-out to do anything productive, they played peanut in the dining room, covering the table with cards, snacks, and sodas. Their conversations while playing ranged from the mundane ("I love that shirt you just got." "Don't buy one! We'd end up wearing them at the same time, and nothing could be more lame.") to the political ("How is it possible that so many men are in positions of power when boys are so utterly stupid?") to the intellectual ("What does 'conundrum' mean?" "It's when something's really puzzling. Like how I have so many pairs of pants, and yet I can never find anything to wear.")

And at some point that she couldn't put her finger on, probably during one of their Peanut games, wired on Diet Pepsi Twist and gorged on fat-free pretzel nuggets, Buffy had looked at her little sister and realized that she loved her.

Dawn returned with two glasses of what they'd termed Magical Dawn Iced Tea, a drink mixed so sweet that, on close inspection, the tiny granules of sugar were all visible. Buffy took a sip as she sat up in her chair and prepared to play the game again. "Okay, let's go; I'm feeling lucky."

"Do you think he's dead?"

Buffy bit her lower lip and kept her eyes focused on the table in front of her. "He's always been dead."

"You know what I mean." Dawn picked up her peanut pile of cards and began to shuffle it nervously.

"No," Buffy said, her voice coming out a little too stern for her liking. She sighed. "No," she repeated, gentler this time. "I honestly think he'll live forever. Like a cockroach. A nuclear war'll kill us all and when the smoke clears, it'll be Spike and the roaches, existing forever just so the new evolving race of life will have something to be aggravated by."

This explanation seemed to cheer up Dawn, who smiled as a little as she continued shuffling. "It's just weird that even Clem hasn't heard from him."

Buffy frowned at her cards. The King would be easy to move, and she could probably get rid of that three once they started getting aces out there, but she had two sevens, and those would be more difficult. "Vampires don't usually send cards, Dawnie."

"He sent me one."

Buffy's eyes snapped up from where she had been mentally plotting her first moves of the new hand. "What?"

"Oh, not recently," Dawn quickly corrected. "But last summer, for my birthday. Spike gave me a card. You didn't ever see it? It's in the living room desk."

Buffy gestured at the cards spread out between them. "You're trying to put off the game, aren't you? Cause you know I'm gonna win this time."

Dawn's wicked card-shark smile returned, and she held up her first peanut card almost threateningly. "As if. Ready?"

When the curtains became pink with daylight, they finally decided to end this night's game and go to bed. Buffy lay in her room watching the sunlight begin to rise against the ceiling. The nightmares that had plagued her last year were thankfully gone, but old slayer habits died hard; she never felt like sleeping until it was fully daylight. She crept downstairs, and found herself sitting at the desk in the living room.

She found the card buried underneath a pile of bank statements. The envelope had been torn apart brutally, in the classic Dawn style of unwrapping. It was a regular card, with Happy Birthday printed across the front in blue and gold. And inside, his scrawled handwriting:

--

Nibblet,

Happy Birthday. You're a nice kid. If I ever get this chip out, I probably won't kill you.

Love,

Spike

--

A few months ago, seeing this would have made her turn off the desk lamp, put her head down, and cry. But now she only smiled. 

Things were better now. She'd worked through her depression. And while she still had a crappy job, too many bills, and the constant responsibility of saving the world, she didn't spend her days in a haze of misery. Not anymore.

Things were better. She was better. So she didn't need anyone else around to try to make her feel better. She didn't need him.

So the reminders of him weren't painful. Touching, maybe, as she thought about how, in those days after her own death, when Dawn must've been devastated, Spike's few sentences in the card, however ridiculous they seemed, must've been like a proclamation of love. No wonder Dawn missed him.

And maybe she did too. Miss him, a little, mornings when she couldn't sleep. 

But not really.

That night she dreamt of the time he drank from her. 

It was her second week of working at the Doublemeat Palace, and at the end of her shift her drawer was ten dollars short, and the manager had snapped that she should know better. She came home with a Doublemeat Medley for Dawn, who sucked her teeth at the sight of it and defiantly announced that she'd be spending the night at a friend's house, where they had real food. 

She patrolled one of the cemeteries slowly, as if in a daze, as if she felt her life had ended but she was forced to watch the world keep going, this stupid world that she'd hate, if only she had the energy to hate anymore.

When a vampire leapt out from behind a tombstone, she didn't raise her arms to fight.

It wasn't a conscious decision to die, just an exhaustion that spread over her limbs and a solidness behind her eyes that made her feel as if this evil creature was the world moving, but she wasn't a part of this world, so why should she even bother fighting to save it?

The vampire knocked her over roughly, and its nails dug into her shoulder, tearing her skin open. Instinct surfaced with the pain, and she dusted it quickly.

She walked into his crypt without knocking, because it was too late now to break old habits. He emerged from the lower level shortly after she entered, his eyebrows knit together at the sight of her frown and the defeated posture of her body. 

"What is it?" he asked, all business. "Someone hurt?"

"Just me," she said flatly, turning her body so that he could see her red-stained shoulder.

He had bandages, and she dressed the wound herself as he leaned against the wall and pretended not to watch her. The dark vibes coming from her slow, measured movements kept him unusually quiet, even after she finished her work and lunged at him.

She pressed her body against his forcefully, knowing that pain would make him say it. He banged against the wall with an audible thud, and met her frantic groping, sending shivers up her spine and into her brain, where the sensation drowned out everything but her monotonous plea, the thought, *say it, say it, say it*. She bit into his face, leaving tiny dents along his jaw line, and that did it -

"I love you."

What mattered wasn't that he said it, but that *someone* had said it. That someone, anyone, loved her, even if it was a man who was dead and evil, even if that meant that no living man would ever love her again, not after how she'd been broken by death, and then broken by life, made so cold and numb that she didn't even realize it when she started crying.

He was inside her, rocking his body into hers, pressing her into some random piece of furniture, and she tore off her bandage so hard that her shoulder began bleeding again, and the pain seemed so far away that it didn't even hurt, and she moved his face towards the open wound.

Her eyes were closed, and wet, though she didn't think about how her eyes had gotten so wet, only that if she had to look at him she'd have to think about what she was doing, and she didn't want to think right now. She just wanted to feel the injury, feel the pain, feel the fucking, feel the edge of the table as he pushed her backwards with each motion, feel the blood rush out of her body as hard and as fast as he could take it.

Instead she felt his hand there, pushing down on the cut, causing her blood to leak out between his fingers, and he returned his face to hers, where she was crying like a child, freely, her sobs echoing through the stone room. He kissed her deeply, opening both their mouths with each motion, covering her lips with long kisses, breathing in as she exhaled unevenly, still crying, and he drank from her mouth instead of her body.

Long after the pressure of his hand caused her wound to close, after the thick wet redness on his pale skin turned brown as it hardened, he was still drinking, and she was still crying, until, fatigued, they both fell asleep on the floor, naked, sticky, covered in semen, blood, and tears.

Except, in her dream version of that night, after they fell asleep, her yellow eyes opened, and her sharp teeth sunk into his neck.


	2. Part Two

Part Two

*Again, thanks to my sister Jean, who originally made the killing list.*

Buffy put her glass down and stared at their enemy intently. They were quickly running out of ideas. "Decapitation."

Dawn nodded slowly. "Lead paint chip poisoning."

"Drinking household cleaning products."

"Faulty silicone breast implants."

"Falling into a deep fryer."

"Syringe with air bubble."

"Trapped inside tanning bed."

"Rodents of unusual size."

Their enemy stood at the other end of the room, tossing her blond hair over her shoulder and then back again as she shamelessly flirted with two boys. Earlier that evening Kirstie had approached them, smiled, and innocently said that she hoped to see Dawn at the next school dance. "You know, if you can manage to find a date, it would be really great to see you there." Then she grinned and sashayed away to flirt with Mike, the same boy Dawn had been talking to a few nights ago. Buffy instantly hated her as much as Dawn did. At least Cordelia had had the decency to be direct with her insults. 

Anya approached their table carefully balancing three sodas. 

"Oh, I bet you can help with this," Dawn said.

"Help with what?"

"We're figuring out creative ways to kill Kirstie," Buffy explained.

Anya handed the drinks to them and sat down. "Covered in pollen and locked in a room full of bees," she suggested.

"This is why you're the pro," Buffy admitted with a nod of respect.

"Well, I'm through with talk," Dawn said, standing. "I'm gonna go *accidentally* spill my soda on her shirt."

"Dawn, I can't let you do that," Buffy warned. She reached out and removed the glass from Dawn's hand. "This is Sprite. Take my Pepsi; it'll stain more."

"I think I'm becoming more evil in my old age," Buffy said when Dawn had walked away.

"Join the club," Anya said. "And speaking of badness, there's something I need to talk to you about."

"The Pine-Sick demon?" Buffy asked. "Hallie already told me about it. I didn't see it earlier tonight, but I'll do another patrol tomorrow."

"It's called a Pineseehc," Anya corrected. "And no, that's not what I meant. I need to..." She frowned and squirmed in her chair. "I've never done this before. It's all gross-feeling."

"Never did what?"

"Apologize." Anya leaned across the table so that she could look into Buffy's eyes. "I'm really sorry. About, you know...the Spike thing."

"Anya," Buffy said, shaking her head. "We're so totally past that."

"I know, I just had to say it." She leaned backwards and resumed her usual comfortable pose. "And I hope you appreciate it. I don't feel sorry about a lot of things. Over a thousand years of cursing people, and I don't feel bad about any of it." Her eyes flickered downward. "But I feel bad about hurting you."

"You didn't know."

"But if I had -"

"I know."

Anya looked up with a hopefully smile. "So we're good?"

Buffy nodded.

"Good." Anya gestured to the dance floor. "Wanna go dance together and make all the guys drool?"

"Hell yeah."

*

The Summers house was dark and silent. All of the lights were off, and the only sound was the steady hum of the refrigerator. Then a key jangled in the lock, and the structure was suffused with giggles.

"And Anya just looks at the guy and says, 'Maybe if you were a little less ugly, we'd be a little more interested in whatever it is you're talking about.'" Buffy tossed her keys on a table and laughed again.

"She is so much fun," Dawn said. She hung her jacket by the door and yawned. "Mind if we skip the Peanut tonight?"

"And I miss my daily ass-kicking?" Buffy gasped with mock horror. "Okay, but you better play tomorrow after patrol. Or else I might actually begin to develop some self-esteem."

"Well, we can't let that happen. Night, Buffy."

"Goodnight."

Buffy moved into the darkened kitchen and took a few fat-free pretzels out of the cabinet. It was three a.m., too late to go out for a quick slay, but much too early to go to bed. She opened the back door and stared out into the darkness. There was the faint scent of something familiar out there, but she couldn't quite pinpoint it. Stuffing the last pretzel in her mouth, she walked outside and stood on the back porch.

The house closest to Buffy's was occupied by an old woman who turned her nose up at Buffy whenever she saw her on the street. Buffy could only imagine what interesting sounds the woman had been treated to during their years in Sunnydale, and didn't blame her for her coldness. But someone must have been visiting her today, maybe for a summer barbeque, because Buffy could smell some sort of fruit coming from beyond the fence. Oranges, or maybe cantaloupes. 

She sat down on the steps and thought about the evening. It had been fun, as most of their nights out were. Occasionally they were interrupted by a vampire attack, but most of the time she, Dawn, Anya, and any one of Dawn's friends who tagged along had a good time. And she and Anya had developed a friendship, despite any issues that may have hung between them. After their brief conversation tonight, those issues were ready to be forgotten. Except that Buffy had forgotten about them already.

"Way to bring up bad memories, An," Buffy muttered.

Because after those bad memories, there was the bathroom floor. And after the bathroom floor, there was the evil best friend, and the him being gone, and the end of the world, and all she wanted now was to have it all be over with, finally, and be able to stop thinking about it.

In a way, she knew that it would be easier if he never came back. But in a way, she still wanted him back. 

Buffy sighed and, for the thousandth time, wished for a normal life. In normal life, she would meet a guy when he borrowed her pen in school, not when he approached her in an alley and said he was going to kill her. In normal life, he would ask her out to the movies, not come to her for help with killing her ex-boyfriend because he was screwing his girlfriend. In normal life, she would ask him to help her with Chemistry homework, not come to him for comfort when she rose from the dead. In normal life, she would get angry at him for talking to another girl and not call him for a week, not get angry at him for dumping a dead body for her and beat his face in. 

In normal life there would be no bathroom floor memory, reminding her over and over again that the only man who loved her was inherently evil.

Inherently evil. She ran the phrase through her mind as the warm wind brought the scent of cantaloupes closer. Inherently evil and in love with her. At first she hadn't believed it was real, and perhaps it hadn't been, not back then. But when she first came back, she was convinced that yes, he really loved her. 

What had never occurred to her before now was how to rectify that. Inherently evil, and in love with her for real. 

Back when they had been sleeping together (and now, still now, in that damn dream), the idea haunted her. The idea that she was so messed-up that a dead person loved her. It was an insult. 

An evil thing loved her. She was so worthless that only an evil thing could love her.

An evil thing loved her. She was so extraordinary that an evil thing could love her. He was so extraordinary that, even as an evil thing, he could love her.

Sometimes, Buffy thought, when you fall in love, it's like getting hit. Sometimes falling in love is more cerebral. But sometimes, the *right* times, love is just seeing someone. It's not a sudden realization, but a gradual feeling, entering without acknowledgement or words, so that when you look at them, when you finally *see* them, it's almost a surprise that you love them.

But not really.

"I see you," she said.

"Wasn't hiding."

He looked the same, but then vampires didn't age, so she shouldn't be surprised. He leaned against the porch railing the same way he'd always stood, with the cool-guy pretense just barely hiding the apprehension behind his eyes. He wore the same clothes that had always been, in all honestly, much too tight for a heterosexual man to wear, but which she hadn't minded because he could make them look so damn good. But for the first time she was looking at those snug pants with something other than lust. She was seeing....she was *seeing*.

Her long stare made him frown questioningly. "Something bad happen?"

She was jolted into reality by his question. Where were we again? She thought. Oh, right. Spike back, uncomfortable situation, can't think of stuff to say. 'Every night I kill you?' Probably not the right time to get into that.

"Apocalypse, death, misery, the usual. But lately, not so much, so..." She shrugged.

"I heard," he said. "Well, some of it, at least. And I'm sorry...about Tara." The threat of a sincere moment brought his hand to his pocket instinctively, and in a moment a lit cigarette was between his lips. "I gotta admit, she was the only one of the lot of you who didn't, on occasion, act like a complete idiot."

Buffy smiled. "Have to agree with you on that one." She moved her head to look at him. "So let me guess. Vampaholics Anonymous convention in Las Vegas, last-minute speaking invitation, no time for goodbyes?"

Spike shrugged. "Figured you've had your full share of big dramatic moments."

She lifted an eyebrow at him skeptically. "We aren't having one now?"

"Hell, no," he said, just barely managing to suppress a smile. "I just came here for my jacket."

"Why don't you get it tomorrow night?" she asked. "Stop by around eight and then come patrol with us?"

"Your friends won't mind?"

"Since they're in England, probably not," Buffy said. "Giles took Willow to be 'rehabilitated' by some coven, and Xander went with. So it's just me and Dawn."

"Dawn's patrolling now?" Spike asked, genuinely surprised by this. 

Buffy nodded. "She's pretty good too. And I know she'd like to see you." He hesitated. "Come on," she prodded. "Fighting, bloodshed, scary new demon with unpronounceable name."

"How can I resist?" His chin went down and his eyebrows went up. 

Yep, Buffy thought, hasn't changed a bit. 

But she had changed. She had seen him, with that same quiet revelation that had helped her become best friends with her sister. 

But for them, it was way too late for friendship. So what was this? 

"I'll see you tomorrow then," he said, and then he was gone, leaving behind only the scent of his smoldering cigarette to obscure the smell of cantaloupes, as it rapidly dissolved.

"See you," she said softly.

(tbc)


	3. Part Three

Part Three

*Sweet sweet exposition. But I promise suffering and misery in part four. Thanks to ozfan. I kind of ripped off….I mean….was inspired by ozfan's Dippity Dork: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=750217

Buffy dropped her cow hat onto the tabletop and slid into the booth across from Anya. "Mmmmmm," she said, looking down into the plastic carton before her. "Food without grease. I'd almost forgotten that such a thing existed."

"Just call me the lunchtime savior," Anya said as she took another packaged salad out of the paper bag beside her.

"So how's business?" Buffy asked. 

"August is always a good month," Anya told her. "All the college kids have to stock up on their candles and incense to mask the smell of narcotics in their dorm rooms." She began examining the assorted packets of dressing she grabbed from the deli. "So anything new with you since...ya' know...last night?"

Buffy swallowed a mouthful of lettuce. "Actually, a lot. Guess who's back in town?"

Anya seemed to be carefully considering the question as she poured Caesar dressing over her meal. "Willow?" she guessed.

"No."

"Giles?"

"No."

Her eyes narrowed. "Xander?"

Buffy shook her head.

"Riley?"

"No."

"Scott Hope?"

"What? No!" Buffy put down her fork and stared across the table. "I didn't mean you should really *guess*."

"Oh," Anya said. "Well then just tell me."

Buffy leaned forward, as if sharing a secret, and whispered, "Spike."

Anya raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"I know," Buffy said, agreeing with the unspoken comment. "He just showed up in my backyard last night."

"And? How was he? I mean, did he look evil?" she asked, then added, "--er than usual?"

"I thought the same thing. Spike leaves town, comes back chipless, massive killing spree, angst, angst, angst." She shrugged and popped a tomato into her mouth. "But he seemed the same."

"And you?"

"And me what?"

"To what extent dig you wig?"

"Barely!" Buffy said defensively. "I wigged at like, a two. Two point five at the most."

"Sure," Anya said sarcastically. "So was there sparkage? Tingliness? Thinly veiled sexual innuendo?"

"There were definite tingles," Buffy said, dropping her eyes as if ashamed. "Problem is, the tingles were about a foot north from where the tingles usually were, and now I'm not sure what that means."

"Hmm," Anya said. "Well, tingles a foot north can mean one of two things. Either you ate some bad seafood, or you're in love."

"Oh!" Buffy's eyes lit up with excitement. "We had that shrimp last week!"

"Buffy," Anya said slowly, as if explaining to a child. "You know perfectly well that you've digested that shrimp already." She leaned back in the booth and casually began picking through the salad. "Besides, this is a good thing. Remember, just a few weeks ago, when you were saying you thought you'd never have a relationship again, what with the Slayer thing, and the resurrection thing, and all your miscellaneous neuroses? Now you can have a relationship." She reached across the table and patted Buffy's hand supportively. "Yay for you!"

"But I can't have a relationship with Spike," Buffy explained.

"Why not?" Anya went back to digging in her salad.

"Because."

"Because why not?"

"Because," Buffy said firmly. "He's eeeevil."

Anya looked up with a perplexed expression on her face. "Why did you say that?"

"Say what?"

"Eeeevil, like that, with too many 'e's?"

Buffy shrugged. "Because it's funny?"

"No it's not," Anya said flatly. "Besides, I'm a demon, and you're still friends with me."

"That's different," Buffy said. "Since you became a demon again, you haven't cursed anyone."

"Not for lack of trying," Anya pointed out.

"Still. You had legitimate issues, and you got through the issues, and now you're a good demon." Buffy stabbed a carrot with her fork, but its thickness was too much for the plastic utensil, and it immediately fell off . "Pretty much." She frowned at the vegetable as it slid away from her a second time. "Recently." Stupid carrot.

"So let me get this straight," Anya said, folding her arms across her chest. "In the Buffy morality, we only hate people for a certain period of time after they maim someone."

Buffy sighed and let the fork drop into her half-eaten salad. "I don't know what the Buffy morality is anymore."

"Let me help you out. Here's the way I look at it." Anya held up her finger as if about to impart a lengthy lecture. "Morality is stupid." 

Buffy looked up expectantly, assuming her friend would elaborate more on this concept, but Anya had gone back to her lunch. "Thank you very much, Confucius," Buffy muttered.

"It's true," Anya said. "Morality's just some stupid thing some guy invented in order to sell bibles."

Buffy couldn't help but laugh out loud. "It is not!"

"Is too," Anya replied firmly. "It's all business. Half the charms we have at the Magic Box don't really do anything. It just makes people feel better to carry them around. But you don't see me advertising that. If people want to delude themselves, and give me money to support their delusions, far be it from me to complain. Same with morality. Just a bunch of ridiculous concepts people came up with to make themselves feel good, like they're better than others. When really, all that should matter is that you live your life, try not to hurt too many people unless they really, really deserve it, and be happy with the choices you make, no matter what anyone says about whether these choices are 'morally' right or wrong."

Buffy shot Anya a mock-angry look. "Stop being smart," she said. "You're making me feel all retarded. Especially now that I have to put the cow hat back on." She picked up her hat and stood. "As usual, thank you for saving me from burger hell."

Anya nodded. "And as usual, it's no problem. Just as long as you remember --"

"I know, I know," Buffy said, and she began to recite the speech Anya had been giving her regularly during their lunches together. "There is no greater gesture of love than you not asking me to reimburse you for the salad. So I have to be aware of what a special person I am to merit such selflessness from you, and not get all depressed like before."

"And….?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "And I'm sure you'll go to heaven now."

Anya smiled proudly. 

"You know, it's not like I got a free guest membership while I was there."

"Shh!" Anya said, as if the powers that be were taking notes on their conversation. "So do you want me to come patrolling with you tonight?"

Buffy looked away. "Actually…."

"Oooooh," Anya teased. "I take it there's going to be a touch of Spike in this evening's plans?"

"They'll be some Spike," Buffy admitted. "But absolutely no touching. They'll be walking, chatting, brutal slaughter of a three-horned Pineseehc demon, and you know, maybe a chaste handshake goodnight."

"Nothing else?" Anya asked skeptically.

"Nothing else," Buffy said seriously. "And if he tries anything else, I hope you'd be willing to turn his hands into like, caterpillars or something."

Anya smiled as she stood up and threw their empty containers into the trash. "What are friends for?"

*

The thing that Clem loved most about living in a cemetery was the peacefulness.

As he slowly opened his eyes to see the afternoon sun seeping through the edges of the crypt windows, he didn't miss his apartment by the mall in the least bit. There he was often awakened early by the sounds of blaring car alarms and shouting teenagers. But in the crypt he could sleep the day away, and even the nights (with the exception of the occasional shrieks of young women as vampires murdered them) were serene and relaxing. He'd spent the summer mostly indoors, watching television, making minor repairs to the charred lower level of the crypt, and reading true crime novels. He went out only for grocery shopping and weekend poker games, but he found that he wasn't lonely at all. Rather, this period of introspection had made him feel more at peace than he ever had before. When he fell asleep at night, he often felt like he was floating in the middle of a tranquil ocean, completely calm, at one with the earth and the –

"Ahhhhhh!" Clem felt something cold slide across his arm and he bolted from the bed. He covered his face with his large hands and cringed against the wall of the bedroom. "Don't hurt me!" he cried out, his voice shaking. "Take whatever you want; just please don't hurt me!"

"Bloody hell. Is this the way you've been guarding my place while I'm gone?"

The familiar voice caused Clem to look up, with he grinned at the sight of his friend's customary scowl.

"Spike!" Clem said. "You're back!"

"Got back late last night," Spike explained as he sat up and ran a hand through his matted hair. "I was trying to get some sleep, but you snore like a chainsaw, mate."

"You slept in bed with me?" Clem asked incredulously as he watched Spike stand and wrap the sheet around his waist. "You slept in bed with me *naked*?"

"I'm not going to sleep on the floor in my own place," Spike explained.

"But *naked*?"

Spike rolled his eyes and pulled on a pair of pants he'd left on top of his dresser. 

"Look, Spike, I'm sorry," Clem said quickly. "You're a really good friend and I like you a lot, just not in that way."

"Will you shut up?" Spike snapped. He raised his eyebrows at Clem's light blue pajamas. "I just don't have the latest in demon sleepwear, is all."

"Oh." Clem sat down on the bed and watched as Spike dug through his dresser. "So how was your trip? Do you have pictures?"

"Nope," Spike muttered, his back turned. "Got something else though."

"Really? What?" Clem asked curiously. But then his face drooped with thought and he leaned forward. "Wait…I can tell."

Spike turned around quickly. "You can?"

"Yeah." Clem took in a deep breath. "I can smell it on you."

Spike's mouth hardened into a line. "A soul."

"No, not that." Clem sniffed again. "Smells like….cantaloupes." He took in another breath and then nodded. "Yep, definitely cantaloupes." 

"Oh, for the love of…" Spike groaned and sat down on a nearby chair, abandoning his search for clothing.

"Why do you smell like cantaloupes?" Clem asked. "Did you go to Virginia?"

"No, I didn't go to Virginia, you stupid saggy poof," Spike snapped. "I went to Africa. And I got a soul."

"Really?" Clem asked. "Well, you should've gone to Virginia. They have a Cantaloupe Festival in Halifax County every July."

"All that fighting, the torture, and all I end up with is a new bleeding scent." Spike let his head fall into his hands and twisted his mouth into a pout. "I was all ready for some big spectacular moment when I'd realize the error of my evil ways, clench my jaw and rip my shirt and look all agonized and sexy." He shrugged. "But I don't."

"You still look sexy," Clem said reassuringly, then quickly added: "In a totally hetero way." He studied his friend, trying to detect this new element. "How does it feel? You know, having a soul?"

"Kinda like indigestion," Spike said, putting his hand to his chest.

"Do you still want to kill people?" Clem asked him. "Do you still want to kill Buffy?"

"Not as much."

"But you still want to kill her?"

Spike considered this for a moment. "A little."

"Hm." Clem reached underneath the bed and retrieved the snacks he'd stashed there the day before. "Well, this is all very anticlimactic."

"Don't I know it," Spike grumbled. 

Clem smiled sadly and held out a plastic bag towards Spike. "Cheeto?"

(tbc)


	4. Part Four

Part Four

Again, I have stolen. All head tilt descriptions from this point on are courtesy of Head Tilt Headquarters: http://www.headtilt.com, my absolute favorite Spike site.

Buffy glared at the clock on the off-white wall of the kitchen as if it was the source of all her pain, and staring at it could somehow destroy it. It was now 7:12 – exactly 72 minutes since her shift ended. She stomped up to the front counter, tapped her manager on the shoulder, and pointed accusingly at the clock.

"Seven twelve!" Buffy shouted. "Oh, no wait! Now it's seven thirteen. *Seven thirteen*, Lorraine!"

"I know, I know," Lorraine said apologetically. "But Timothy hasn't shown up yet. If you leave we won't have anyone on grill."

"But I really have to go," Buffy whined. "My sister's waiting for me, and we're supposed to do something, and somebody's supposed to meet us for this something, and she doesn't even know somebody's coming, and it's this whole thing and I *so don't wanna be here*." 

"I need two Doublemeat Medleys," Gina called out without turning around. "And a Doublemeat Special Value Combo, and a Doublefun Kids' Meal."

"Come on, Buffy," Lorraine said. "We're all part of the team here."

Buffy groaned and turned back towards the grill just as the back door opened.

"Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late!" A teenage boy walked into the kitchen adjusting his uniform.

"Tim!" Buffy shouted with a smile. "Tim, so glad to see you. How's everything going? That's great. Hey, Gina needs a Doublemeat Medley and a Double Value whatever and some other stuff. Bye!" She ran out the back door before Tim had a chance to respond.

*

Once inside her house, Buffy checked the clock in the living room and then dashed up the stairs. Fourteen minutes until eight; plenty of time. "Dawn!" she called as she hurried into her room. "Dawn, come here!"

Dawn appeared in the doorway of Buffy's room as Buffy was pulling on a clean shirt. "You know," she said. "You're like, twenty-one and a half now. Isn't it about time you got dressed without my help?"

Buffy looked into the mirror and tried to comb her hair into something less resembling a dead, grease-covered rat. "Dawn, last night, late last night, after you went to bed, something….someone…."

The doorbell rang, and Dawn was skipping down the stairs before Buffy had a chance to object. She sighed and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Leave it to Spike to aggravate her by being early.

"Since when do stupid vampires even have watches?" she muttered to herself as she trudged down the stairs. She stopped halfway down, puzzled by the tableau before her.

Dawn's cheerful, teasing face from earlier in the evening had hardened, and she glowered at Spike from inside the house. She was too close to the entranceway to allow him to enter without having to shove her, so he stood outside, his mouth drawn into a frown, his familiar puppy-dog head tilt in place. But he seemed more confused than hurt as he watched Dawn stand up straighter, arranging her body into a confrontational pose

She put one hand on her hip and kept her other hand on the doorway, as if preparing to slam it closed. "You're back," she said blankly.

Spike allowed a smile to flicker on his lips as he briefly wondered if Dawn actually fought vampires when she went patrolling with her sister, or if she just glared at them until they staked themselves. "Looks like it, Nibblet."

"Yeah, that nickname wasn't cute the first five hundred times," Dawn snapped immediately. "It sure as hell isn't now." Her eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down, searching for visible changes. "So why'd you come back? Was there someone else in town you forgot to sexually assault?" 

Spike opened his mouth to reply, but closed it quickly. Talking was one thing he'd always been good at. Or, depending on one's perspective, bad at. It was his big mouth that usually got him into trouble, but also managed to get him out of a few bad situations. And whether he was convincing someone to join his team or goading someone into a fight, he never lacked for something to say. But now, as he stood looking at Dawn, he was speechless. If it had been Buffy there, greeting him with hostility, it wouldn't have been a struggle to find exactly the right sarcastic, hurtful, humorous, or disgustingly sweet thing to say. He was confident he actually could've wrapped up all four emotions in one run-on sentence. But with Dawn, everything was different, and the words 'I'm sorry' were emptier than they'd ever been.

Dawn swallowed hard, as if forcing down whatever emotion she was feeling and trying to replace it with anger. Still, her voice threatened to break as she said, "You want to smack me around some?"

"Dawnie…" Buffy reached out towards her tentatively. "Dawn, why don't we just go patrolling now?"

Dawn took a step away from both of them. "Go without me," she said, tossing one last fierce look at Spike. "I don't much feel like killing evil things right now."

She turned and ran up the stairway, stomping on each as hard as she could. Buffy began to follow, but when she heard Dawn's bedroom door slam, she recognized it as a sign that a conversation right now would only end in an ear shattering, "Get out, get out, GET OUT!"

"She's not really angry," Buffy said as she turned back towards the doorway. "It's just –"

But the front porch was barren.

"That's okay. I'll um…kill the demon myself," she muttered. "I have…you know…super powers."

*

"Come out, come out, tiny Pineseehc demon!" Buffy sang as she walked down a residential street that led to two of the city's cemeteries. "I have some delicious puppies for you to eat!"

She briefly wondered if Dawn was okay alone in the house. She knew her sister could protect herself, but she wasn't so sure about her emotional state. The tense confrontation was a surprise. She hadn't expected Dawn to run giggling into Spike's arms but…

Actually, Buffy *had* thought that happen. Dawn welcomes Spike back gleefully, and she's the one left on the outside, the one with all the issues and the baggage. 

Except that, surprisingly, Buffy didn't feel any issues. When she'd finally made her way out of hopelessness, crawling out of a grave for the second time in less than a year (but this time, not afraid, and this time, not alone), she'd felt as if everything was new. As if she was discovering life all over again. And she found that it was simple to forgive Giles for leaving her, and Xander for leaving Anya, and Anya for abandoning her humanity, and Riley for finding happiness somewhere else. She could even forgive Willow for trying to destroy the world. But the idea of forgiving Spike for attacking her never even crossed her mind. Maybe because, without thinking about it, without weighing the reasons why or why not it would make sense, she'd already forgiven him. And she had a feeling that this unconscious absolution had something to do with the unfamiliar location of her tinglies.

"Arrrgh!"

A tall, lanky, demon with three horns on the top of its head and a large, burlap weapon bag on its back leapt out from behind a nearby house. Its green skin was scaly, and its fingers were long, tapering off at sharpened fingernails. 

"Ha, ha, I was just kidding," Buffy teased. "I have nooooo puppies for you!"

"Don't want puppies!" the Pineseehc roared. He turned away from her and began walking up the steps that lead into the house. "Want in!"

The house was dark and the driveway was empty, so Buffy didn't panic when the demon kicked down the front door and barged inside. She followed it to the empty living room, where it stood in the middle of the room looking down at the couch. It picked up one of the throw pillows and, with a snarl, used its claws to tear it to shreds. 

"Polyester," the demon growled angrily. It reached into what Buffy had previously thought was a weapons bag, and took out a small, beige pillow with fringe around its edges. It placed the pillow down and ran its rough hand over it lovingly. "Chenille."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, you have *got* to be kidding me!"

There was a thud from the back of the house, and the sound of footsteps. The demon yelped in surprise as two hands grabbed the sides of his head. With a snap, it fell to the ground at Spike's feet.

Spike looked down to the monster and then up at Buffy. "You were hunting a Pineseehc?" he said, scowling at her in disbelief. "Things must be slow."

"Hallie told me it was dangerous!" Buffy explained. 

"Well, they can be," Spike admitted. "They see you sitting on a fake leather chair and they'll tear your lungs out."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Buffy wasn't sure if she should apologize for Dawn's behavior. And Spike suddenly seemed very interested in the corpse lying between them.

She remembered when he was first chipped by the Initiative, and would reluctantly come along on patrols just for the sake of killing something. It was easier then, because he was mostly evil and she was mostly good, and they could just hate each other. But in the years since, it had gotten much too complicated, and it wasn't just about sex. She couldn't forget the things that had happened between them. The kind things, the horrible things, the things she'd already forgiven him for, and the things she felt she needed forgiveness for.

But, she wondered, if it was a new world now, the old events shouldn't matter anymore. 

But maybe "I'm sorry" wasn't exactly the phrase she needed.

Spike cleared his throat to break the silence and gestured to the demon below him. "Want me to drag the body outside?" he offered.

"Thank you," she said. There it was; that's what she had to say. She looked up to meet his eyes. "Thank you for saving my life."

Spike stifled a laugh. "Buff, it was an interior decorating demon."

"I don't mean now," she explained. "I mean before. You saved my life then." She lowered her eyes. "And not just with the whole dancing and burning and catching thing. In other ways." She remembered what she had been like when she first returned from the dead. How, even surrounded by her friends, she could feel completely alone. "I was so lost," she muttered. But she quickly pulled herself back to the present. "And I needed someone. Someone who wouldn't judge me, and didn't ask too much from me." She looked at her shoes. They were beginning to get worn around the toes. Probably from kicking too many demons. "You weren't just the nearest piece of meat; you were the nearest piece of meat who loved me. And I never thanked you for that. Nights when I didn't think I'd be able to make it, I was able to be with you." And maybe it wasn't love, she thought, but it was at least a distraction. And maybe that's all that love is, just something that distracts us from all the crap in the world. Like the way he'd been able to just touch her and make her forget how much she wanted to die. 

"Back then," she continued. "Back when we were…." Leaned against a cool stone wall, your mouth over mine, swallowing my sobs. "Every night I didn't want to live anymore, and every night…you saved me."

It seemed like they stood there forever, her eyes on her scuffed shoes. She imagined she could smell the Pineseehc decomposing.

"What I really wanted was to die for you." He said, his voice oddly free from emotion. "Didn't quite work out how I planned though."

She looked up only when she heard the door close, and then lifted the demon by its thin arms and dragged it outside to bury.

(tbc) 


	5. Part Five

Part Five

Unilateral separation is an actual concept. I've read some articles about it, but if I got any of the details wrong, please feel free to let me know.

"Hey, skank!" Buffy called as she walked in the front door of her house. "You up for some Peanut action?" 

When no one responded, she walked up to the second floor of the house. She'd done a quick patrol after disposing of the Pineseehc demon, but found no other threats. Still, she'd been gone for at least two hours, and lately Dawn's teenage mood swings oscillated back and forth swiftly. She couldn't *still* be pouting.

"Come on," she said, approaching Dawn's bedroom door. "I've been practicing, and I think I can score like a thousand points tonight and kinda begin to catch up." She opened the door, and was faced with an empty room and an open window.

"Some things never change," she muttered to herself. When she had been 16, the bedroom window was used as an exit more often than the front door, and now Dawn was proudly continuing the Summers tradition, even though she could've easily left after Buffy had and spared herself the climb down the trellis. 

"Guess it's just me and the TV tonight," she said as she walked back downstairs. A year ago, she would've grabbed every weapon she could carry and scoured the town looking for her sister. But now, Dawn knew not only how to fight, but which areas to avoid, and when to run. 

Besides, she knew where Dawn was headed, and that she'd be safe there.

She grabbed a pint of frozen yogurt and a spoon, and settled down into the couch. For some unfathomable reason, the TV was set to CNN when she turned it on. She laughed quietly. No one who lived here ever watched CNN. She figured that when Anya had met them for their recent night out, she must've checked the stock report while Buffy was in turmoil over deciding whether to wear a halter-top or a tank top.

The news channel's logo swirled around in the corner of the screen, beside a picture of tanks surrounded by men in uniforms. "A new solution to an old conflict," the voiceover explained. "When CNN returns, the recent Israeli movement towards unilateral separation."

"Unilateral separation," Buffy repeated to herself. She had no idea what it meant, but it sounded nice. Lateral…that was a straight line, right? Like a very still body of water. She imagined that the phrase could describe the line in the horizon that divided a large lake from an equally blue sky. Separate, yet without conflict. Calm, tidy even. Like she'd felt when she stood across the room from Spike earlier that evening. Apart, but without anger.

She shrugged and dug her spoon into the fat-free goodness. If it could work for her and Spike, it could easily work for the Middle East.

The show came back on, and shots of the plastic anchorman at a desk were interspersed with dusty scenes of cities so full of war that they seemed permanently uneasy. Having lived in Sunnydale for over six years, she wondered if she could relate. If the people there were like the people here, who cooked dinner and went to school and walked the streets, feigning cheerfulness, or just simply oblivious, as the fight raged on slightly out of their view. It was a wonder to her that the entire town, the entire world even, wasn't suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, having panic attacks at the sight of a shadow, shooting a gun into the darkness as their bodies stiffened with fear. But then, maybe the entire world was that way, and they were all just too used to it to notice.

"In a county where tanks invade settlements and suicide bombers are a weekly occurrence, peace seems but a dream. In recent weeks, U.S. envoys to Israel have reported that there is little hope for talks to begin again. But many Israeli citizens are beginning to talk among themselves, about a concept called unilateral separation."

A man appeared on the screen, speaking in an unrecognizable language, and a translator's voice promptly drowned him out. "The problem is that there is no organization. There are Israeli towns and Palestinian settlements right next to each other. There are checkpoints everywhere, but it is chaotic. In my town, Palestinians simply walk across a field and can come into our markets. People worry they are suicide bombers. If we can impose this unilateral separation, Israel will no longer be occupying Palestinian land, there will be no more attacks, and we will not have to force the peace talks."

"Sounds good to me," Buffy said through a mouthful of frozen yogurt. 

The anchorman reappeared. "Few political figures approve of this idea, but among the people, the demand for unilateral separation is becoming increasingly more urgent. Opponents argue that it would take years and cost millions, but supporters think this cost is worth the peace that could be gained. In the most recent discussions on unilateral separation, a dividing line along 1967 borders has been suggested. An impenetrable structure would be erected, with Israelis on one side, Palestinians on the other, and a policy of zero mobility between the two."

Buffy placed her carton of yogurt on the coffee table and frowned. "You're gonna build a big fence?" she said to the television. "That's the great solution? Build a big fence?" She scoffed and began a sarcastic tirade to an invisible audience. "Well, why didn't I think of that? We'll just build a big fence down the middle of Sunnydale. Demons on that side, humans on this side. Lock the gates and keep us all nice and imprisoned. Remember, that's the evil side. Hey, you! No shoplifting over here on the good side! You want to be like that, you can just go to the other side of the big fence." She shook her head and leaned backwards into the cushions. "How incredibly lame. Like anything's that simple."

Then she thought about the room she'd been in earlier. Demon on that side, human on this side, a carcass between them. No anger, no fighting, no tinglies, no touching. Imagining that they could exist this way easily, and forever. Unilateral separation.

"Crap."

*

Spike sat back in his worn armchair and turned on the TV. It was relatively early in the evening, but hopefully he'd still be able to find a bad 80s movie somewhere on basic cable. He'd declined an invitation to poker night, despite Clem's insistence that kittens were a surefire cure for post-soul acid-reflux. 

He flipped through the channels quickly, barely noticing what was on the screen. He was bored, and if the biggest threat to the Hellmouth was a Pineseehc demon, he knew he'd be bored often. He figured, if worse came to worse, he could spend his new free time writing a book titled, "How To Piss Off Women". With his century of experience, he thought he must be an expert.

He hadn't been prepared for Buffy's weird little confession. If she'd punched him in the face and called him an evil, filthy demon, he would've known how to react. But this new coldness that had developed between them, this nauseating politeness, was just too foreign. 

There was a soft click and a long, low squeak as the door to his crypt opened.

He knew it wasn't Buffy. Polite or not, she still would've just kicked it halfway off the hinges. And Clem's cheerful voice would have permeated the room before the door was even completely open. Still, when he looked up, he hadn't expected to see her.

Dawn stood almost exactly as she had earlier that night: still and firm, ready to fight, her shoulders back, as if trying to look intimidating. He hadn't seen her like that often. When she'd first seen the repaired Buffybot, she stood that way, and he'd almost smiled at how strong she'd become in the few weeks since she'd walked down from a tower, her body bent and wounded, her face slack with shock and grief. But now he found himself more sad than proud. For a while there, the previous summer, he'd been Dawn's strength, and it was comforting to have a purpose. His existence had been much too full of women who didn't really need him. 

But now, as he watched her push the door shut, her tiny bicep flexing more for show than in effort, he knew he'd lost her.

Dawn took in Spike's blank stare and tried to make her face look angrier. She set her mouth in hard line, lifted her chin, and drew her eyebrows together. But somewhere in her mind, she was aware that this had happened before. 

*She put her hand around her waist, wincing at the pain she felt with each breath, using her other hand to steady herself against the doorframe as she felt the blood seep through the bandages that covered her midsection.*

She put her hand on her hip, confident in her newfound fighting skills, knowing that she was capable of giving him a beating worthy of a slayer. Especially if he didn't hit back, which she knew he wouldn't, which only made her angrier. Now was the time to start shouting at him, but though there were a million things she could think of to say, somehow they all couldn't get past 

*the lump in her throat.*

You left. You knew everyone before you left too. You knew when my mom left, when Riley left. You were sitting right there on the counter when Giles left, and on the ground when Buffy left. You saw me fall to pieces over and over again, kneeling by a fresh grave with shaky hands holding a magic book, standing right here with bloody bandages and sobs gathering in my throat. But you still left.

*I don't know where to go. I feel like I should go home, but no one lives in my house anymore. I feel like I should be in a sleeping bag, hiding out at Xander's or Willow's , but it doesn't make sense anymore; no one's after me anymore. I want to crawl into the ground and die, but I wouldn't even know how to do that. I'm so scared…*

I trusted you. I slept countless nights with you sitting downstairs, making sure I was safe, and I always felt safe. Am I supposed to be afraid of you now? Am I supposed to be afraid you'd do that to me? You loved her, and you tried to hurt her. So what's there to stop you from hurting me?

*I'm afraid I'm going to disappear. What if that's what happens now? They made me to hide the key. What if, when the threat's gone, I turn back into what I was? And then it's like I'm dead. Worse than dead, because all the fake memories would be gone too. Everyone would just forget about me. And she died for nothing. *

I suppose now you're gonna say you left for my own good. Because you thought I'd be better off without you. My father already tried that line of crap on me, and I didn't buy it then. And my father was never like you. He never knew I was upset, couldn't see the pain on my face even when I tried to hide it from the others. He never walked into my room late at night just to make sure I was still asleep and still okay. When I was afraid, nearly panicking, hearing a noise outside and wanting to hide, he never took me by the shoulders and promised to take care of me. And I loved you more than I ever loved him. So now I hate you more.

*Even if I don't disappear, I still feel like she died for nothing. Because I'm nothing. I'm sure they're all looking at me and thinking of her. That I'm just bits and pieces she left behind. That she was a hero, and I'm an elaborate hallucination. *

I hate this feeling, like I want to hit you. I want to hurt you like you hurt me. But I think that if I smashed you twenty times with a baseball bat, it wouldn't hurt as much. And it wouldn't make me feel any better.

*Do you think that, maybe, because you're a vampire, the spell wouldn't work on you? If I disappear, if everyone forgets, would you remember that I was here? Can you see me now when you look at me?*

I was too young to know you when you were evil, but now I see what you really are. You really are evil. I hate you, and I want you to know it. I want beat in your skull until you understand exactly how much I hate you. 

*I need you to see me. When you look at me, can you see through the spells? Through the magical creation of me and the memories of her? Everyone who loves me is gone, and I don't know how to live anymore. I need you to love me.*

But when she finally managed to work past the lump in her throat, all of the words that had run through her mind immediately vanished. There was only a small, struggling breath, and a choked sentence that broke the lump and ended with tears.

*"I'm so scared."*

"I missed you so much."

Her body shook with sobs and her eyes squeezed shut. She thought she 

*would fall down; she was suddenly so weak. She couldn't form any more*

words, only cry and feel the tears pouring through her closed eyes. When she 

*opened them, she was sitting in the chair with Spike kneeling in front of her, *

pressing his forehead to hers. He wasn't crying, wasn't even breathing, and she

*wondered if, after a hundred and twenty years, you could run out of tears, so that*

you have to put your face underneath others, and catch the tears as they fall, until

* both faces are equally wet. And it poured out of her, onto him, *

all her anger, 

*all her grief,*

like when it rains so hard and for so long, that when she wakes up,

*sitting on his lap,*

her legs lengthwise across him,

*his arm around her, holding her steady,*

her neck stiff from sleeping with her head against his shoulder,

*when she wakes up,*

everything is clean.

(tbc)


	6. Part Six

Part Six

Buffy pushed open the crypt door forcefully, and its bang against the wall echoed through the crypt, betraying its emptiness before she even looked around and confirmed it. "Spike?" she called out uncertainly, but no one responded.

She walked down to the lower level, and stepped softly onto the floor, so that the dark-haired girl standing at the foot of the bed didn't notice that someone had come into the room behind her. 

She was pulling sheets off the bed one by one, casually crumpling them into balls, and dropping them to the floor at her feet. Buffy frowned, wondering how there could be so many sheets on this bed. The last time she'd slept here, there'd only been one or two.

She stood still, silently, at the foot of the ladder, and the stripping of the bed continued, as a small heap of too-white linens thumped onto the floor, where they were quickly marred by dirt. Buffy was unnerved by how natural it seemed for another woman to be arranging this bed. For a while, she'd felt as if it was hers.

But then, this girl – this woman – certainly seemed to have more of a right to be here than Buffy did.

Still, Buffy couldn't help but confront her. "What are you doing here?"

She turned, and her eyes widened as if she'd been caught at something. She recovered from her shock in an instant, and her familiar smirk was soon in place. "Hi Buffy."

"Hi Faith."

Faith spread her arms out and tilted her hips to one side, as if displaying her work. "What do you think?"

"Redecorating?" Buffy asked, the bitterness in her voice clear.

Faith shook her head. "Just cleaning up."

Buffy swallowed hard before speaking again. "Is he dead?"

Faith grabbed the edge of another sheet – the last sheet left on the bed – and pulled it upwards. Immediately the air was filled with a thick, gray dust.

Buffy squeezed her lips together to keep from inhaling it, but still felt a tickle of ash gathering around her nose. Faith had dropped the sheet to the floor, with the rest, and was standing in a pose that seemed so completely Faith, as if she was totally aware of every inch of her body. Her stance was wide, her hips fluid even in her slightest motion, her shoulders high, and her half-smile at once both unarming and aggravating.

"Did I kill him?" Buffy asked softly.

Faith nodded. "Definetly." 

"I didn't want him dead," Buffy said, intent on keeping her voice unemotional.

"Don't worry," Faith said quickly. "He's only kinda dead. And as both of us intimately know, kinda dead doesn't count for much. We all wake up eventually." Faith wandered over to a far corner of the room and poked the toe of her boot into a pile of dirty clothes. "That's how it works, right? Good as new?" 

"Not at all," Buffy said softly. She looked up at Faith, who'd turned her back. "You know why I did it, right? You understand?"

Faith turned on her heel in one motion and smiled teasingly. "The rush of the kill?"

Buffy frowned at her as if she should know better. 

"Kidding!" She said, putting her hands up in a gesture of surrender. Her face softened, and she looked almost sympathetic. "I could give you a million reasons. I could be your id if that's what you need." She smiled at the challenge she'd posed herself, and straightened her body up proudly. "Do what you want, and damn the consequences. The consequences find you soon enough, believe me." She noticed a discarded bag of chips by the floor and picked it up. "Or how about this? It's your life, only yours, no matter who gave it to you. Some god, or evolution, or that chick Willow. Don't matter. You answer only to you, not them." She sniffed the bag, made a face, and tossed it over her shoulder carelessly. "Or – and this one's my favorite – Say that you saved the world like eight times already. If there's one thing you deserve, it's some guiltless dick, am I right?" She made one last survey of the room and, finding nothing else worth snooping through, turned her face to Buffy's and spoke evenly. "But here's the big reason, big sister. He won't hurt you anymore."

"He could," Buffy said almost inaudibly. She focused her eyes on a far corner of the ceiling. "Wouldn't even take much. A sentence. Less than that. A phrase, a fragment."

Faith stood still, watching her with an expression of confusion until she continued.

Buffy put her hands up to her stomach and nervously knit them together. "He could say, Not worth it anymore. Like I'd want to stick around. Not good. A lot to learn about men. Pretending that I loved you." Her voice became lodged in her throat, and she cleared it. "That's all it would take to hurt me, and he knows that. One fragment from him, and I break into pieces."

Faith raised her eyebrows. "I was talking about the bathroom thing, B." She walked back towards Buffy. "But looks like you got some bigger issues. The least of which is, you got your vamps confused."

Buffy's hand went to the side of her neck unconsciously, and she stroked a patch of tough skin there. "All injuries heal," she continued, ignoring Faith. "Broken bones, vampire bites, even death." She forced a soft laugh through her nose. "I'm totally *over* death. But I can't ever forget…" She took in a deep breath. "Do you have any idea what it's like, to open yourself up, show yourself to someone else completely, and then have them laugh at you? How it destroys you, kills a little piece in you that no black magic can resurrect, when they hurt you, and when they leave you."

Faith put her hands to Buffy's shoulders and pulled her face closer, breaking her long gaze.

"Buff," she said. "How do you think I ended up the way I was?" And she leaned forward and kissed Buffy's forehead.

And Buffy woke up.

*

When Dawn walked in the back door of their house, Buffy was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of Cheerios and reading the newspaper.

"I am so sorry." Dawn said immediately.

Buffy glanced up from the 'Living' section of the paper only briefly. "It's okay," she said, then returned to the Fall Fashion Preview. According to the article, her favorite white jacket had been 'Out' since last winter. Somehow, this information managed to upset her more than last night's dream or Dawn's disappearing act.

"Totally very sorry," Dawn said, putting her bag down on the counter and standing tentatively, as if expecting her sister to start lecturing her at any moment. "You must've been really worried."

"Actually," Buffy said, "I would've been more worried if you'd walked home from Spike's late at night. So better that you stayed." She gave the article one last glance before looking up. Frilly tops – still in. Wardrobe crisis somewhat averted. "So did you guys make up?"

Dawn smiled slightly. "Pretty much. We talked. Well, talked a little, after the me-crying bit."

"That's good," Buffy said. "Because I need you in full form for the battle that awaits us."

Dawn looked at the newspaper on the table with wide eyes. "Vampire attack?"

Buffy shook her head and pointed to the page. "Shopping emergency."

Dawn's face became distorted with grief as she scanned the article. "But I *love* that white coat!"

"Like I've told ya', sis," Buffy said as she stood to wash out her bowl. "The world can be an evil place."

Dawn began playing with a strand of her hair. "Buffy, um…Do you mind if I go out tonight?"

Buffy shrugged as she returned to the counter. "Sure. Don't think there's much going on Bronze-wise, but we could go out to eat with Anya or something." She patted the newspaper. "First though, a trip to the mall to salvage my outerwear."

Dawn bit down on her lower lip nervously. "Yeah, the mall, that would be fun. But tonight, I kind of meant, by myself. Or, actually…with Spike."

"You're going out with Spike tonight?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah," Dawn said, and then quickly added. "No! I mean, not *going out* going out, because, hello, in love with my sister all tragically and forever. It's just that, last night he mentioned that he didn't get me a birthday card this year, and I said he could make it up to me by buying me a present, and he said he had the perfect present for me, and he'd give it to me tonight so that we could, you know…kill things with it."

"Kill things with your present?"

"I'm thinking that means it's a weapon," Dawn explained. "Either that, or a really heavy sweater set."

"Oh, well, that's fine," Buffy said. "I mean, it's not even up to me, right? You can go kill things with Spike if you want; you don't need my permission."

"You don't mind?" Dawn asked hopefully.

Buffy smiled. "Not at all." She stood up. "But if you're leaving me alone tonight, I need serious commitment from you during the day. We're talking comfortable shoes, water bottles for continuous hydration, and total fitting-room honesty."

Dawn giggled and saluted her sister. "Yes, sir, Sergeant Retail!"

"Now march up to the shower," Buffy ordered. "We have a long day ahead of us."

*

Clem groaned and sat back in the chair. It was going to be a long day.

"See, cause he slept with her daughter, filthy bugger," Spike said, gesturing at the television in front of them. "Still, can't blame the guy. He didn't know, what with the amnesia."

Clem sighed put his hand to his face. He'd been at a very pivotal point in "Dressed to Kill: The Unauthorized Biography of Amy Fisher" when Spike had dragged him upstairs to watch soap operas, enticing him with White Cheddar Cheese Nips. But now the Cheese Nips were gone, and Clem was quickly becoming bored. "You know," he said to Spike when the commercials came on. "I think I'm gonna get back to my book."

Before he could stand up, they were both startled by a knock at the door. They exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"Who's that?" Clem asked.

Spike shrugged. "I don't know anyone who *knocks*."

The door swung open, and Spike flinched prematurely from the thin ray of light that entered. The man walked inside, closed the door behind him, but remained in the entranceway. 

He was young, probably in his early thirties, but his rumpled clothes and unshaven face gave him the appearance of an older man. He was wearing thin-framed glasses that would have looked nerdy had he been cleaner, but they still managed to give him the air of intelligence. The way he stood conveyed confidence; he knew he had just entered a vampire's lair, but he didn't seem at all worried about this. A long, fresh scar across his neck, and the clear scent of his humanity, made Spike instantly aware that he didn't need to get into a fight with this man.

Still, he stood quickly, shifted into vampface, and growled threateningly at the intruder. "You'll get out now if you know what's good for you," he said.

"Don't try to frighten me, Spike," the man said, clearly unafraid. "I know all about your chip."

"Yeah…well…" Spike looked around the room for something to intimidate the man with, but found only his friend with one hand deep in an empty box of Cheese Nips, searching for crumbs. "Didn't count on my friend here, did ya'? His name's Clem….Clemaronicus. The deadly, bloodthirsty Clemaronicus demon."

Clem pulled his hand out of the box and licked a bit of White Cheddar dust off his fingertips.

The man took a step further into the room. "I'm not here to fight you. I've heard, though various sources, about your recent affliction, and I've come to make you an offer."

"You mean you heard about his new soul?" Clem asked. He grinned up at his friend. "Cool; you're famous."

"Shut up," Spike snapped at him. 

"There are prophesies, Spike," the man continued. "And presently you are the only creature on earth that might fulfill these prophecies. They offer danger, adventure, and, above all, redemption." He paused to let his words sink it.

Spike's face shifted back into its human form and he stared at the stranger. "Redemption?" he asked. He furrowed his brow, as if considering the concept for the first time. "Redemption. I…I don't know what to say."

The man took in Spike's conflict and held his head up proudly.

"Oh, wait, yeah I do," Spike said. "Bugger off." He turned around, flopped down on the chair, and turned up the volume just as the show came back on.

"But…" the man said. "You have to at least talk to me. Hear what these prophesies say about you."

"Not interested," Spike said.

"Spike, I'm offering you redemption."

"Redeem my ass. I'm not interested."

"But – "

Spike turned the volume up louder, and he heard a frustrated sigh from the doorway.

"Fine, but this isn't over. It is your destiny, and when the time comes, you won't be able to turn your back on it." The door slammed shut.

Clem glanced at the closed door and then at Spike, who seemed completely undisturbed by the sudden visitor who knew everything about him. Spike leaned forward in his chair and focused intently on the TV screen.

"See, now this girl stole her friend's baby, but the friend doesn't know, since she brainwashed her…"

(tbc)


	7. Part Seven

Part Seven  
  
*Thanks to a reader for help with a political definition in this part.*  
  
  
  
"This sucks."  
  
Dawn swung her sword in front of her with a quick motion, getting some satisfaction out of the whipping noise it made as it cut through the air. Though it had obviously been cleaned and sharpened recently, its age was betrayed by the handle, worn down and made extra-glossy in the area where a large hand would have gripped it, and by a few small nicks in the blade. She imagined that these tiny imperfections were caused by some fantastic ancient battle, where a warrior - maybe even a Slayer - had thrust the sword into an impossibly large demon, and then torn the weapon out, catching the metal on bone and damaging it as the monster fell bleeding to its knees.   
  
She looked at the sword more closely and then threw a sidelong glance to Spike as he walked beside her. The real story was probably less big-nasty-demon-death and more slaughter-of-innocents, so she was content to remain ignorant on that issue.  
  
She swung the sword again, this time downward, catching the tip in the ground and effortlessly upturning a mound of dirt and grass. "Shiny new toy and nothing to decapitate," she said with a pout.  
  
There was a barely-audible chuckle from behind her, and she could imagine Spike's mouth turning up in a half smile. "Life's a bitch, ain't it?" he muttered.   
  
From time to time during their patrol that evening, Spike had fallen a step behind her, making her feel, for brief periods of time at least, as if she was leading the way. She wondered if he did this on purpose, to show that he knew she was capable. She'd seen Buffy exhibit similar behavior during their outings: giving her enough distance to allow her some semblance of autonomy, but remaining close enough to step in if there was trouble. She couldn't help but hold her head high and her shoulders back proudly during these moments, and think of herself as someone powerful, brave, a threat to all enemies.   
  
But she also couldn't forget the other times.  
  
Hiding under tables and desks, in corners, in dark underground recesses. Crouched down, against the wall, and always afraid. Being told to get behind Buffy, told to stay with Spike, and a part of her indignant at this, at being treated like something that needed protection. But another part of her was still afraid, and comforted by the sight of her sister's arm moving her backwards, and Spike's back as he stood between her and danger, even when danger managed to find her anyway.   
  
In some way she knew that, no matter how many vampires she dusted and demons she stabbed and swords she called her very own, a part of her would always be a little girl hiding, and if she thought about it long enough, she was sure she'd hate herself for that.  
  
She stopped walking when Spike disappeared from her peripheral vision, and a familiar landmark (a crooked tree, at some point struck and splintered by lightning) alerted her to which one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries they had wandered into.   
  
She turned to find Spike just a few feet behind her, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the darkness for shadows, apparently itching for a kill much more than Dawn was. When he noticed that she'd stopped walking, he stopped as well, and gave her a questioning frown.  
  
She paused a moment to study him. He stood wearing his familiar faded pair of jeans and tight black shirt. (She thought she'd have to offer sometime to help with his laundry, so that he would stop shrinking everything.) Without his leather jacket he seemed smaller, and almost human. She'd retrieved the coat from the hall closet earlier that evening, but he'd turned it down with a shrug. At first she wondered if he'd gotten mellow in his time away, but he quickly dispelled that theory on their walk towards the cemetery, as he related the story of killing a Pineseehc demon the previous night.   
  
"It was vicious," he'd said, holding his hands up to simulate claws. "Razor-sharp nails. Huge, blood-stained fangs. Had a taste for flesh, he did, and didn't much care whether it was living or not. Tried to tear my arms off, but I showed that poofter who's the real bad ass. Tore his giant head near off his body." He smiled proudly and put his thumbs in his pockets. "Too bad you weren't there, bit. Damn impressive sight."  
  
Dawn had only rolled her eyes in response. "I don't think the word *whatever* can fully express my feelings."   
  
But now all sarcasm vanished as she almost timidly pointed further into the cemetery and asked, "Can we go somewhere?"   
  
He gestured for her to continue. "Lead the way."  
  
It was only a few yards to the place she wanted to visit: a nondescript grave, barely noticeable among all the bulky mausoleums and tombstones. The grass had grown in enough so that no one would notice its newness, but even in the darkness Dawn could see a slight difference between the light-green turf and the aging grass around it - a thin line forming a perfect rectangle. The top of the grave had only a small metal marker, unreadable unless one bent over it. But when Spike arrived at the site, he seemed to know immediately who was buried beneath them, and he stood silently behind her.  
  
"The headstone should be coming soon," Dawn explained. "Her dad's getting it made and shipping it here, so I guess that takes a while."   
  
It was late, and with the lack of fresh vampires around, the only sound was her own breathing. It occurred to her that she stood between two dead bodies, and that, despite their state, she loved them both.  
  
"I found her," she said dully.   
  
The hush was broken by the subtle sound of motion, and then his arms were around her body, crossed, with his hands against her shoulders.   
  
"She was lying in my mom's bedroom," Dawn continued. "Just on the floor there. She'd been dead for a little while, I guess, because she wasn't bleeding, but there was blood..." The floor, the bedspread, the wall, the curtains, little specs of it, pools of it, her shirt stiff with it. "...everywhere." She swallowed, wanting to cry, but feeling like her body couldn't bear it. "I was afraid to touch her, because I knew she'd be cold, but I couldn't let her just lie there. I sat against the wall, so she wouldn't be alone. For hours, I think." Pain crept up into her temples and seemed to push behind her eyes. "I should've moved her but I was just so scared. And the worst part..." Her chest shook against his forearms, and he moved forward so that his body was against hers, as if that might steady her as she cried. "When I was sitting there I thought, seeing her like this is the most terrible thing I'll have to go through. And when Buffy and Xander came in, I thought, that's it. It's over now. But it only got worse. One day I was helping out at the Magic Box, unpacking these crystals. And there was this really pretty amethyst. I thought, 'Tara would like this; she uses this type a lot in her purifying spells.' I almost even said it out loud to Anya. And then I remembered - she'd dead; I'll never see her again."   
  
She closed her eyes, hoping that might ease the rising pain in her head. Spike's body behind her remained inhumanly still, but his hands tightened around her shoulders. Dawn sniffled and tried to control her voice as she continued.  
  
"The worst part of death isn't the moment when someone dies. It's after, when they're just not there anymore. Eventually you can ignore the memory of the blood and the cold and being so scared you can't move. But that absence, that big hole in the world where she used to be, it hurts so much..." A sob tore from her mouth against her will, sounding to Spike like a moan of pain, as if her insides were being burned. "...and it never goes away."  
  
Her started breathing then, and after a few minutes the steady movement of his chest against her back slowed her to a softer, even sobbing: the only sound in the cemetery. And they stood at the edge of the grave until the night was noiseless again.  
  
*  
  
Buffy finished wiping down the kitchen counter just as the teapot began its rising whistle.   
  
"Want me to get that?" Anya asked without looking up from the newspaper.  
  
"I'm okay." Buffy took out her small assortment of tea bags and examined two of them. "So do you want weird-smelling trendy herbal tea or...other weird-smelling trendy herbal tea?"  
  
"Other sounds good."  
  
Buffy brought two mugs to the kitchen island and sat across from Anya, who was frowning at the newspaper. "This is terrible," she said.  
  
"Nothing but bad news in the paper today, huh?"  
  
Anya pushed the pages away from her with disgust. "My mutual fund's down."  
  
"My coat's not cool anymore."  
  
"The leather one?" Anya asked, surprised.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "The white one."  
  
"Oh, but that coat's always been ugly." Anya took a sip of her tea. "So you were saying that Dawn's weird now?"  
  
"Not bad-weird," Buffy explained. "Good-weird. Like today we were at the mall, and she didn't ask me to buy her everything she saw. It was very unsettling. And my coat's not ugly."  
  
"She's growing up," Anya said. "We all are."  
  
Buffy grinned and gestured to the mugs between them. "Yeah, we're all old now, sitting around, drinking tea." She raised one eyebrow impishly as she sipped her drink. "Though you're way older than me. Way, *way* older."  
  
Anya shrugged in agreement. "Yeah, but I don't have the little, uh..." She gestured to the area around her eyes. "like you do."  
  
Buffy tossed the dishtowel at Anya, who giggled as she dodged out of its way.   
  
"Let me get out of here," Anya said, standing. "I have to open the shop early for some weird foreign customer who wants to meet with me. He better be spending some serious money. You working tomorrow?"  
  
Buffy nodded. "Unfortunately. See you for lunch?"  
  
"Yep. Thanks for the tea."  
  
When the front door closed behind Anya, Buffy got up and retrieved her cordless phone. Back at the kitchen counter, she continued drinking her tea as she dialed a long series of numbers.  
  
After a few odd-sounding rings, the other party answered with a muffled, "Huuuuh?"  
  
"Gah," Buffy put her hand to her head in embarrassment. "Time difference. Forgot about the time difference."  
  
"Again," Willow said through a yawn.  
  
"I'll call back tomorrow."  
  
"No, no, it's all right. Is something wrong?"  
  
"Purely a social call," Buffy replied. "There hasn't been a lot of big evil activity lately. Of course, now that I said that, there's probably gonna be a plague. How are you doing?"  
  
"Better than the last time you called," Willow said. "Substantially less crying. Though the horrible, all-consuming guilt remains at around the same level."  
  
"Will, you know no one blames-"  
  
"I know," Willow interrupted. "Trust me, I've had about a thousand conversations about it." She paused to take a deep breath. "Xander's been great. Giles too. And the witches here are just amazing. They're teaching me these spells for warding off dark magic, and it's pretty powerful stuff. I guess I never realized that you can have power without it being, you know, a dangerous thing." Her voice lowered. "I guess that was my whole problem."  
  
"No. It wasn't your fault. It was the magic, you were addicted-"  
  
"No, I wasn't," Willow said firmly. "Magic isn't a drug, and there's nothing addictive about it. The problem was inside of me. I was...it was the power. My whole life, I never felt like that. My parents always had control over me, and then in high school I was a nobody. I let people walk all over me. But then I finally got something that no one else had. I could do things, I could make people afraid of me. Buffy, a part of me liked how, if I wanted to, I could hurt people."  
  
"But you wouldn't hurt people," Buffy argued. "No matter what happened, you're one of the good guys, Willow. You've proved that over and over again. One mistake doesn't cancel out who you are."  
  
"I made that mistake *because* of who I am." She sighed sadly. "I'm using magic now, the spells they taught me here, and I'm fine. It's not the magic; it's me. Which means that somewhere, inside of me, I'm capable of horrible things. I'm capable of evil."  
  
"Then we all are. Everyone on Earth. We're all given the ability to be good or evil, and the free will to make that choice. You always have a choice, Will." She paused to control her rising voice, not wanting to upset Willow further by yelling at her. "There's this thing called unilateral separation, where people who can't get along just build a wall between them. And I was thinking about how you can't divide things that simply, and you can't exist apart from other people if you-"  
  
"No it isn't."  
  
"What?"  
  
"That isn't what unilateral separation means."  
  
"But..." Buffy knit her eyebrows together, confused. "But they said so on TV. On *CNN!*"  
  
Willow cleared her throat. "In the Israeli/Palestinian situation right now, they're using the term incorrectly. What 'unilateral separation' is supposed to means is that one group of people, usually a province, tries to secede from the country it's a part of. "Unilateral' means only undertaken by one side. For example, every once in a while there's a movement in Quebec to secede from Canada. Now, if they did it *bi*laterally, that means they would discuss it with the rest of Canada first. But unilaterally means that Quebec would stop being a part of Canada, declaring themselves their own country, without consulting or negotiating with Canada. Kind of like, 'nyah, nyah, we're leaving.' This sort of thing is usually really violent, as you would expect."  
  
"Uh-huh," Buffy said blankly. "What about the fence?"  
  
"There is no fence."  
  
"Oh." Buffy took a sip of her tea. "Well, now you've destroyed my entire metaphor."  
  
Willow chuckled softly. "Sorry about that."  
  
"Hey, it was worth it just to hear you laugh," Buffy told her. "That's the Willow I remember."  
  
"Thanks," Willow said softly, almost sounding embarrassed. "And I have been feeling better lately."  
  
From somewhere outside Buffy could hear Dawn's voice rambling on excitedly, and she smiled. "I'm feeling better too."  
  
"That's good," Willow said. "Well, let me get back to bed."  
  
"I'll call again next week," Buffy told her. "And this time, I promise not to forget about time zones."  
  
"Again," Willow said with a giggle.  
  
"Again," Buffy added. "And remember what I said, okay? About how we're not good or evil, we just..."  
  
A motion out of the corner of her eye distracted her.   
  
"...make choices."  
  
Spike stood in the back doorway, leaning against its side casually. He was mostly outside, but the tops of his boots were well over the threshold, as if to show that he wasn't intimidated, that he knew he could come in. His familiar smirk and slight head tilt were proud, almost defiant, though of what no one could say for certain. Spike just seemed to carry that air of boldness, even when he was sappy, depressed, or drunk. A look that said, "I exist. Ha ha." If he had no other obvious good qualities, one could at least say that he lived without shame. Without apology. And Buffy was suddenly reminded of fire.  
  
"It wasn't a demon." Dawn appeared from the darkness behind him and bounded into the house, holding her sword up in front of her. "Just a cat. Oooo, but maybe it was a vampire cat." She looked over at Spike curiously. "Are there such things as vampire cats?"  
  
When the spirit guide told her that death was her gift, she'd been upset. So upset that she'd barely listened to the rest of the its inane ramblings. But the words had stayed with her somehow, and she was sure there was something there about fire...  
  
"Oh, is that Dawnie?" came from the receiver still in her hand. "Let me say hi."  
  
Love - that's what she'd gone into the desert about. It told her that her love was like the fire, a statement that served only to depress her further.   
  
"Never seen any, Nibblet, but I think you just gave me something to do next weekend."  
  
Of course love was like fire: intense, scorching, painful, burning brightly and then burning out.   
  
She slowly removed the phone from her ear. "It's Will."  
  
She'd seen it plenty of times, not just in her experiences, but also in her friends' relationships. Every single one had ended in blistering wounds that faded, but never really healed.  
  
"Cool! But then I really have to go to bed or I'll be exhausted. Spike, thank you *so much*! We'll try to stab something another night, kay? Willow! Hi! Guess what I got?"  
  
But that wasn't what the spirit meant. Her love wasn't dangerous like fire, it was...  
  
"Never seen a girl so taken with a weapon. Reminds me of me. Just don't let her sleep with the thing; it's sharper than it looks."  
  
Bright. So bright she pulled away from it.  
  
Spike pushed himself off the doorframe so that she was standing up straight. "Well, I'm off to kill something before sunrise." He tossed a glance over his shoulder and frowned into the night. "Not many vamps around, so I might end up wading through a sewer. See ya'."  
  
"I love you."  
  
Spike stopped breathing, and for a moment Buffy was sure that she had too. Somewhere upstairs Dawn was running water, probably brushing her teeth, and the soft whine it created in the pipes sounded like a far-off test of the Emergency Broadcast System, like there was nothing left in her head but television color bars. He stared at her, stared without blinking, without moving at all. And though every muscle in her body was on edge, ready to tense up, she couldn't move either.  
  
The water stopped, and was replaced with the sound of footsteps. He was walking towards her, so slowly that she saw his body come forward but didn't see him take any of the steps that echoed through the kitchen and through her frozen bones. When he was standing directly in front of her, he finally took a breath, a breath that seemed to shake his entire body, a breath filled with words forever locked in his throat.   
  
And then he punched her in the face.  
  
Her head snapped to the side and her hand went to her jaw immediately. She blinked, and the room seemed to focus for the first time since he'd entered.   
  
"Okay, not quite the reaction I was expecting," she muttered.  
  
"You stupid bitch," he said, his jaw clenching. "You think you can...you think you can just say that?"  
  
"I *did* just say that, idiot!" she shouted back, striking him in the face automatically.  
  
He took the punch and immediately continued, unfazed. "Stupid, selfish bitch, I should've killed you when I first saw you!"  
  
"You want to talk regrets?" Buffy said with an angry chuckle. "I've got ten stakes that missed their destiny right here!" To emphasize her point, she shoved hard against his chest, sending him stumbling backwards.  
  
He caught himself against the edge of the counter and pushed himself back into a confrontational position. "You think that means anything, you saying that? It means nothing! You have no idea what I've been through, all for your skanky ass!"  
  
Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, what a burden for you, having to mope around for years like that. What a big, tragic hero you are, jackass."  
  
"You ignorant bint, I *died* for you!"  
  
"Yeah, and in which wet dream did that happen?"  
  
Spike went to backhand her, but she dodged, and he managed only to clumsily knock her against one of the kitchen chairs. As she struggled to regain her footing, he held his chin up proudly and said, "I have a soul."  
  
Buffy's mouth dropped open. *"What?"*  
  
"I have a soul," he repeated. "I went to this demon, and he did it for me. Killed me, destroyed what I used to be." He put his hand to his chest. "I died, so that I could have a soul, all for you."   
  
Buffy blinked at him, amazed. "Oh my god. Oh my god, you *asshole*!" She leapt forward and hit him in the face, sending him crumbling against the counter once again. "You asshole!" she screamed as he pulled himself back up. "You think you get to decide what I want? You think my life is any business of yours, that you can just...just flounce back into town -"  
  
"I did not flounce!"  
  
"- and tell me you have a soul! What the hell is wrong with you?"  
  
"Obviously, I've been spending way too much time around self-involved, dim-witted Slayers," he spat out.  
  
"It wasn't your decision to make," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It's my life, and you can't just worm your way into it -"  
  
"And what a fabulous life it is," he said viciously. "Really, you're the picture of mental health, Buffy."  
  
"Don't you go telling me what's insane!" she yelled. "This, what you've done - this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."  
  
"Oh, no." Spike pointed at her accusingly. "Your big, lame 'I love you' is the stupidest thing ever. Do you honestly think I could believe that, after everything?" He grabbed one of the nearby chairs and tossed it against the wall in a rage. "Do you honestly think I care what you feel?"  
  
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, yes, tell me all about *feelings*, soul-guy."  
  
"I'll tell you this: You haven't had a genuine feeling your entire life."  
  
"Of course!" Buffy threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Because Spike is the expert on Buffy's feelings. He knows everything about everyone. He's so smart and intuitive, how did he ever manage to fuck up his own life?"  
  
Spike seemed to almost snarl at her. "You know what?" he said. "I take it all back. I never loved you, and I never got a soul for you. I hate you." He clenched his fists, as if fighting the urge to punch her again. "I hope you die. And not in that half-assed way you died before. I hope that this time when you die, it bloody well sticks!"  
  
"Ooooo, scary," she mocked. "'I hope you die'? Is that the best you can do?"  
  
"Of course it isn't, you dense bitch!"  
  
"Yeah, well -" Buffy stopped abruptly.  
  
*He could hurt me. Wouldn't even take much. A sentence. Less than that.*  
  
"No," she said, her voice low with hostility. "No, you don't get to play the suffering hero here, you don't get to hold back." She advanced on him, holding her head up. "You want to hurt me, go ahead and do it. You say every hurtful thing you can think of."  
  
"You want a list of what's wrong with you? I don't have the time to go through it all. And I'm immortal, Buffy." He leaned closer to her, as if daring her to strike him. "I'm frigging immortal, and telling you what I hate about you would take too bloody long!"  
  
"Really? Because cutting me down never seemed to bother you before!" She shook her head, furious. "You thought you could change the rules, and I would just accept it. Then when I don't, I'm the evil one. I'm the bitch who broke your heart, right? I'm the one who couldn't give enough, couldn't love enough. But you didn't want me how I am; you wanted me like you. And now you think you can just change it all around again -"  
  
Spike put his hands to his head. "My god! What does it take to get you to *shut the hell up*?"  
  
So she kissed him.  
  
The motions fell into place immediately - lips gnawing at lips, hands gripping tightly, frenzied breath against each other's skin. The way the world turned to static, and all she could see was the shadow of her eyelashes against his face. She didn't know they were moving through rooms until they fell onto the couch, mouths still connected, bodies pressed together. They were sitting flush against each other, her fingertips digging into his shoulders and his hands hard against her hips.   
  
His mouth moved to her neck, and his hands worked their way around her waist and to her lap. As he undid the top button of her pants, Buffy took in a breath and her body stiffened. "Wait."  
  
The world returned as if switched on, and they both pulled their heads back at the same time. Spike was only looking at her blankly, too dizzy to even form a facial expression. She stuttered out half a word before she realized there was no oxygen in her lungs to form it.  
  
"Wait a second," she gasped out. "Why..."  
  
He pulled his hands away from her pants quickly. Buffy closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on taking a deep breath. When she looked up, her expression was open and curious.  
  
"Why do you smell like cantaloupes?"   
  
He groaned, turned his head away, and let out a small, self-deprecating chuckle. It was such a shock to see Spike weak with embarrassment that Buffy began laughing, and each breath she took in renewed the smell, and the humor, until her smile distorted her face and her abdomen shook.  
  
Spike looked up at her with a smirk. "Bitch."  
  
And he returned his face to hers, where she was cackling freely now, the sound echoing through the house. He kissed her deeply, opening both their mouths with each motion, covering her lips with long kisses, breathing in as she exhaled unevenly, still laughing.  
  
She couldn't stop to think, could only feel him between her fingertips, his hands on her bare skin, and the tightness of her stomach as she giggled hopelessly against his lips, but she knew that it was all somehow familiar, something they'd done before, how he could drink from her mouth instead of her body.  
  
But this, the laughing...this was new.  
  
  
  
  
(tbc) 


	8. Part Eight

Part Eight  
  
*Thanks to my husband Mike for the baseball info. Thanks to my sister Jean for the pillow joke.*  
  
  
  
Her eyes were incapable of opening so early in the morning, and after so little sleep. But there was a phone somewhere, she knew it, and if her internal clock was right, it was about time to make the call.  
  
She knocked over something that felt like a picture frame before she managed to grasp a phone-shaped object. Eyes still shut, she clumsily pounded in the numbers and held the phone to her ear, only to find it busy. Which is how she realized that she'd just dialed her own phone number.  
  
With a sigh she keyed in the correct number, and she rolled over onto her side, pressing the phone into the pillow.  
  
"Hi," she said softly into the receiver, her voice thick with sleep. "I need to call in. I'm uh.sick."  
  
There was a sympathetic-sounding response that she couldn't quite comprehend, and, behind her, a stirring that pulled at the sheet, exposing her bare shoulder.  
  
"Yeah," she continued. "So I can't come in. Cause I'm all uh.sick. Kay?"  
  
As she tried to decipher the words from the other end of the phone line, a shudder went through her body. In her exhausted state, it took a moment for her to be able to pinpoint the source of this feeling. Just as her brain was registering a hand on her thighs and a mouth on her neck, she heard from the phone: "What's wrong?"  
  
"Uh.uh." Buffy tried to steer her thoughts away from hand-and-mouth-on- body to come up with a reasonable lie. "It's um.pain." The hands became more daring, and immediately elicited a moan. "Ooooh!" She bit her lower lip. "Ooooh.the pain. Yeah, it's..ooooh..terrible. So I have to go now." She swallowed hard to keep more noises from escaping her mouth. "Okay then bye."  
  
She hung up the phone and let it roll off the bed.  
  
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, preparing for an onslaught of sensation. But instead, the hands retreated, and the mouth moved up to her ear where it emitted a low and rough, "Do it again."  
  
"Again?" she said through a chuckle. Still unwilling to open her eyes and acknowledge the daytime, or roll over and acknowledge the whispered voice behind her. "But I did it like, four times last night," she said, her tone dropping, almost ashamed.  
  
"Yeah," he said casually, arrogantly. "Do it again. And this time.look at me when you do it."  
  
Eyes still closed, she hesitated and tried to think of that would get him to shut up, or at least off the topic. Something like, 'It's not too early to punch you in the face' or 'Dawn's probably awake, and Dawn cooking breakfast can only end in tragedy. We should go downstairs' or 'How the hell did we get upstairs to my bedroom anyway? I don't remember that part'. Sure, there were things she could say, ways to get out of this; there were plenty of options. But she didn't choose any of them. Maybe because, when she rolled over, her legs tangled in the sheets and her mind set on fulfilling his request, she found that a small part of her, a *very * small part of her, something comparable to an eyelash, actually wanted to do it.  
  
She opened her eyes, and there he was: stupid smirk, wide eyes, bed hair and all. This was the person she'd hated and wanted and sought out and feared. The worst kind of enemy: one who knew her weaknesses, knew when she was down, and could easily use that to his advantage. And then, somehow, a friend: one who, with a just a word, or a glance, or a kiss, could make her smile, or relax, or forget. But even within the comfort was the memory of an adversary, so that even as she moistened her lips and prepared herself to do what he'd asked, something was caught in the back of her throat, that small bit of fear.  
  
And she looked at him, and she did it. "I love you."  
  
A camera on him couldn't have picked up the change, but she, inches from his face, could tell. Whenever she was depressed, she imagined that she was buried within herself, and she knew that her friends were the same way. When things were the worst, they'd pull their emotions inside, putting on a fake smile and a blank stare for each other. But Spike existed at the edges of his eyes, everything about him easily visible. She found it laughable that he had ever successfully lied to her; she could read him so well.  
  
And she thought it would be simple for someone to hurt him. She wondered how he, Mr. I-Am-A-Bad-Ass, could allow himself to be so vulnerable. It would be so easy for anyone to use his startling openness to control him, to destroy him.  
  
And then, she thought maybe someone already had.  
  
Her mouth opened, but she found that her thoughts were much too ridiculous to vocalize. It would be laughable for her to say, 'I'm sorry for how I used you, used your love for me, first to help me fight for my sister's life, and then, even more inexcusably, to comfort me, distract me from my misery. And I'm sorry for the moments, in all those distracting-amazing- terrifying-comforting moments, when you moved to kiss me, and I turned my face away.' It was just too little, and far too late, for those words to have any meaning left in them, just as she would find it absurd - almost insulting - for him to say, "I'm sorry I acted all stalkerish and then tried to rape you." It was impossible to count their mistakes, determine whose were the worst, or absolve them with words alone.  
  
But as she watched his widening eyes and his hopeful half-smile, she knew that something had to happen. As impossible at it seemed, something had to be said to make everything - their history, their hatred, their sex, and their sins - tolerable to both of them.  
  
A few nights ago, separated by the dead body of a demon, she'd had the same nagging feeling, a desire to apologize that she was sure had something to do with the current tightness in her throat. But the words hadn't made sense then either, and instead she'd said -  
  
"Thank you," he whispered.  
  
And then, just like that, it was okay.  
  
Their long stare was interrupted by a shrill, deafening squeal. Spike jumped in surprise, ready to leap from the bed, arms raised, his fighting instincts awakened. But Buffy only sighed and reached to the floor to retrieve her pants.  
  
"That's the breakfast bell," she said wearily, and then shouted, "Dawn!"  
  
The alarm stopped and a reply came from downstairs: "It's okay! Everything's okay!"  
  
Buffy pulled on the clothes she'd worn yesterday - a pair of jeans and a tank top - noting that her underwear was nowhere to be found, but unable to work up the energy to care. She opened the bedroom door and called down the stairs, "Remember to smother the flames, not fan them!"  
  
She turned back into the bedroom, where Spike had put his pants on, and was now poking through the piles of her dirty clothes on the floor, searching for his shirt. "You're a slob, Slayer," he said as he kicked aside a pile of jeans. "Don't know how you managed to stop any apocalypses, being this disorganized."  
  
Ah, yes. Witty banter and cutting insults. Much more familiar than declarations of love. "Fine," she replied. "You stay here and criticize me, and I'll go downstairs and have waffles."  
  
"Fine," Spike snarled at her retreating form. Then his eyes lit up. "Wait. Waffles?"  
  
Buffy found her younger sister standing over the sink, running water over a smoking pan. "Hey, Buffy," Dawn said, still focused on the sink. "Is it normal for one boob to be bigger than the other?" She turned around and yelped in surprise.  
  
"What?" Buffy turned quickly, but found only Spike there, himself equally concerned, scanning the kitchen for the source of Dawn's shout.  
  
"Oh my god!" Dawn rushed towards both of them, her shocked expression relaxing into a smile.  
  
"What?" Buffy repeated. Then it registered: early morning, shirtless Spike, braless Buffy.  
  
"Wow," Dawn said. "I heard all the screaming and banging down here when I went to bed, but I thought you two were fighting." She shrugged and went back to the stove, where a second frying pan was empty and sizzling. "I guess it's like when we used to go to the zoo, and I'd see the monkeys and think they were trying to kill each other, and then mom would have to explain that they weren't *fighting*, they were-"  
  
"Dawn," Buffy said as a warning.  
  
Dawn chuckled as she moved the empty pan to the sink. "Well, the waffles are all burnt up, but I can walk to Krispy Kreme." She picked up her purse from the counter and headed for the back door. "I'm sure you two are hungry after all that crazy monkey sex." And with one final giggle, she dashed outside.  
  
"Kids today," Buffy said with a shake of her head. "No respect for the emotional problems of their elders. Orange juice?" She went to the refrigerator and took out the carton. When she looked back, Spike was staring at the doorway, motionless.  
  
"What?"  
  
He blinked and looked over at her, his mouth slack, though his eyes seemed to be smiling. She'd so rarely seen his eyes happy that it shocked her every time, caught her breath in her stomach, and, when it was finally exhaled roughly, she couldn't help but smile in return. That's where she'd seen Angel's soul return - in his eyes, and as she looked into Spike's deep blue eyes now, she thought that this was what had changed most in him. That look of wonder, that peaceful gaze - that was what he'd gained in his journey. In his eyes now she saw how he loved her, and knew that this was the level of love he'd been unable to give her as a demon. And as his mouth opened, she knew what he was going to say.  
  
"They opened a Krispy Kreme in Sunnydale?"  
  
She laughed. "Yeah, just last week. You been to one?"  
  
"Hundreds," he said reverently. He moved to the center island and leaned against the counter. "Traveled all across America to get back here. Seems like there's one in every town now."  
  
"They're good," she said as she poured herself a cup of juice.  
  
"No, they're better than good." He leaned further over the counter and looked up at her, eyes wide. "Do you know that when you go in there, they give you one glazed free, and it's straight from the oven?" His mouth spread into a contented smile and his eyes closed. "It just melts in your mouth; it's so warm." His eyes snapped open, panicked now. "You should go after her. Make sure she gets a dozen, maybe more."  
  
"Calm down there," Buffy said with a chuckle. She leaned against the other side of the counter, her face close to his. "Actually, I thought I might offer to do a blood run for ya'."  
  
He waved his hand dismissively. "Blood can wait til tonight. But Krispy Kremes..."  
  
"I'm sure she'll get a dozen."  
  
"She better," Spike said, his eyes twinkling wickedly. "Shortage of donuts, that could make a man turn evil again."  
  
"Oooo, I'm so scared."  
  
She leaned in to kiss him, and their lips met so easily that it seemed only natural for him to reach out for her, only natural for her to climb up onto the counter and wrap her arms around his neck. And when the plastic cup spilled orange juice as it clattered to the floor, and she felt it seep through her shirt and to her back as his body bore down on hers, and when he moaned, "mmmm" into her throat as he kissed it, and when he followed that with a whispered, "mmm donuts", and when she burst into laughter, and kept laughing, even as she removed the wet shirt from her body, she thought,  
  
*I could get used to this.*  
  
*  
  
Dawn walked into the dining room with a long red and green box, where a freshly-showered Buffy, her hair still wet, sat painting her fingernails. Dawn placed her package down to examine the bottle of nail polish.  
  
"Pale Pink Passion," she read from the label, and then smirked at he sister. "The official color of a new boyfriend."  
  
"Is not," Buffy said. She held out her fingers to examine her work and then blew on her nails softly.  
  
"Is too," Dawn countered. "You wore the same color on your first date with Riley, and before that, with Scott Hope."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. "There is no way you could possibly know that."  
  
"Sure I can." Dawn took a chocolate glazed from the box and sat down at the table. "That's my nail polish, so I always notice when you steal it. And also, I read your diary pretty much daily."  
  
Buffy threw an angry look across the table and reached into the Krispy Kreme box with the hand that had already dried.  
  
"Not that I mind," Dawn added. "Steal the happy-love colors all you want. Last fall you drained most of my depressing colors. It was Deep Red Sunset and Midnight Maroon all year long."  
  
"You know," Buffy said through a mouthful of jelly donut. "Just because you take something from my room and put it in your room, that doesn't make it *yours*."  
  
Dawn only smiled and took another bite of her donut. "So is he still here?"  
  
Buffy nodded. "Yeah, and you really gotta see this."  
  
Spike was asleep on the living room couch, his knees drawn to his chest, and both arms wrapped around the pillow, hugging it to his head possessively. He wasn't breathing, but every few moments his eyelashes fluttered against his face and his lips parted slightly, then closed again.  
  
"It's so cute," Dawn said.  
  
"Almost sweet," Buffy agreed.  
  
Dawn looked sideways at her sister. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"  
  
Buffy smiled. "I'll get the lipstick."  
  
*  
  
Spike woke up to the sound of two hushed female voices coming from the next room. Occasionally bursts of laughter and teasing shouts broke through their whispered conversation, and slowly lured him back from sleep. After checking to make sure the drapes were securely closed, Spike sat up, turned on the television, and shouted, "Donuts!"  
  
"Five thousand and twenty-four to three thousand four hundred and twelve," he heard Dawn say. "You suck."  
  
"Do not," came Buffy's reply.  
  
"Hey, I'm just repeating what I read on the bathroom wall down at the bowling alley," Dawn said innocently.  
  
"Donuts!" Spike shouted, louder this time.  
  
Dawn appeared in the doorway a moment later with her hand on her hip. "Grouchy much? We saved you four."  
  
"We would have saved more," Buffy said, entering with the Krispy Kreme box. "But Dawn's a pig."  
  
"At least my weight goes to my boobs," Dawn replied with a smirk. "And not to my big fat calves."  
  
"You got her there, nibblet," Spike said as he took the box and dug into it.  
  
Buffy glared at both of them before sitting down on the couch beside Spike, who devoured half of a glazed donut in one bite. "Hey! Let's not forget which one of us has the strongest and most destructive supernatural power."  
  
"Yeah," Spike said, his mouth full. "Dawn."  
  
"What's on TV?" Dawn moved to sit on the floor in front of them.  
  
"I believe the official term is 'pansy American baseball'," Spike told her. "But not much else to watch on the telly when you're home all day." As he brought the donut to his mouth to finish it off, he caught a glimpse of his hand and froze.  
  
Buffy stifled a giggle.  
  
"Do you like it?" Dawn asked. "I thought you were more of a Midnight Maroon guy, but Buffy used up all of mine."  
  
"So it's Wild Mango," Buffy said, erupting into laughter.  
  
"You are two seriously evil bitches," he said, glaring from one giggling woman to the other. "And you better have a way to get this bloody stuff off. Don't think Wild Mango will go over so well when I have to go to Willie's later for blood."  
  
"I have nail polish remover," Dawn said, though she made no more to retrieve it. "And I think I have some black, if you're still into that lame goth thing."  
  
Spike rearranged his pillow and leaned back against it. "My thing is neither lame nor goth. Now be quiet already; this is an important game."  
  
"You put some big kittens on it?" Buffy said from the opposite end of the couch.  
  
"It's a subway series," he explained without taking his eyes from the TV. "Mets at the Yankees. See that guy pitching? That's Roger Clemens. Has a big feud with Mike Piazza."  
  
"Why do they have a feud?" Dawn asked.  
  
"Two years ago Clemens beaned Piazza in the head with a pitch. Yankees tried to make like it was all an accident, but the next year, Piazza breaks his bat on a hit, and then Clemens picks it up and throws it. The bat comes close to hitting Piazza, so he storms the pitcher's mound and there's almost a fight." Spike stretched to reach one of the remaining donuts. "Damn funny thing. Earlier this season, when Clemens was at bat, the Mets pitcher threw wide and almost knocked him in the ass with it." He chuckled through a mouthful of donut. "So, with any luck, two of them'll be up against each other some time this game, and they'll be a little bloodshed."  
  
"But why do they hate each other so much?" Dawn asked.  
  
Spike shrugged. "Dunno. They play for different teams, keep getting in each other's way. Just a clash of personalities, I suppose."  
  
Buffy considered the story. "So, let me get this straight. Two people who, for no real apparent reason, hate each other passionately, keep trying to hurt each other, and seem to get a kick out of pissing each other off."  
  
"That's about it," Spike said.  
  
Buffy nodded. "I think they're in love."  
  
Spike nearly choked on the final bit of donut he was chewing. "What?"  
  
Dawn smiled in agreement. "Unresolved sexual tension. Makes sense."  
  
"They are not in love," Spike said with a scowl.  
  
Buffy tapped Dawn on the shoulder playfully. "I bet the next time they fight, they do that thing where they get right up in each other's faces -"  
  
"Yeah, and they're screaming and cursing."  
  
"And then one of them grabs the other and they kiss."  
  
"And then they realize they wanted each other all along," Dawn said, putting her hand to her chest.  
  
Spike put his hand to his head. "Ugh. Will you stop making it all gay? I won't be able to watch."  
  
"Wait, you said Clemens is a pitcher, right?" Buffy asked. "What about the other guy? What position is he?"  
  
"Piazza," Spike said wearily. "He's a catcher."  
  
Buffy burst into laughter.  
  
"What?" Dawn got up onto her knees and turned to face them. "What? Why is that funny?"  
  
"Well, you know." Buffy put her hand to her mouth to smother more giggling. "Gay men, you know..pitcher, catcher?"  
  
Dawn's eyes widened. "*That's* what that means?"  
  
Buffy held one hand out towards her sister. "Oh Piazza! I love what you do with my balls!"  
  
Dawn took Buffy's hand and fluttered her eyelashes mockingly. "Oh Clemens! My bat is so long and hard!"  
  
Spike clicked off the TV. "I hate you both."  
  
"Oh Clemens! Hurt me with your huge bat!" Buffy shouted out even as she and her sister both burst into a fit of giggles.  
  
"Shut up," Spike said weakly. "If I didn't want this pillow so much, I'd throw it at you." He put his hand to his mouth to cover a yawn. When he felt something sticky, he withdrew his hand and frowned at it. "What's.?" He grabbed a napkin from the donut box, scrubbed at his lips, and then looked at the red stain it had left behind.  
  
Buffy and Dawn both collapsed with laugher.  
  
*  
  
An hour later, Spike sat with one hand on the coffee table while Dawn, sitting on the other side of the table, applied fresh black nail polish. Buffy sat stretched out across the length of the couch.  
  
"So the only way out is the mystical-pool-thingy," Buffy said, "And there's this huge metal gate blocking our path. So I put my back to it and I get it up, lifting with the knees, of course, not the back. It's crazy heavy, but I manage to lift it a little, and everyone gets through. Everyone including Evil Demon Guy #1, but ha ha, I drop the gate so that it impales his legs. And then I say something cool and I smash in his head with a club."  
  
"Cool," Dawn said as she finished the last nail and surveyed her work.  
  
"So you've been to hell," Spike said.  
  
"Yep," Buffy replied. "And there was a whole section just for boy bands."  
  
"Figures." Spike took his hand back and scrutinized his nails. "Nice job," he said to Dawn.  
  
"I'm the expert," Dawn said proudly. She smiled and hugged her knees to her chest. "This is fun, just hanging out like this, isn't it?"  
  
Buffy nodded. "I wouldn't mind spending the rest of the summer this way. Peanut and laughing with my Dawn, and torturing Spike."  
  
Spike threw her a half-hearted snarl as he moved back to the couch.  
  
"Maybe Spike can stick around?" Dawn asked hopefully. "For a few days, at least?"  
  
Suddenly embarrassed, Buffy gave Dawn a small smile and tried not to notice the bare arm brushing against her leg as Spike resumed his relaxed pose at the end of the couch, and she drew up her legs to give him more room. "I don't see why not."  
  
"Yeah, should be a good time," Spike told her. "So long as nothing bad happens."  
  
Both women turned to Spike, mouths hanging open, faces distorted with shock and horror.  
  
"What?" Spike said.  
  
As if on cue, the front door banged open and Anya rushed into the house calling out, "Buffy! Something's happening; are you okay?"  
  
She stopped at the entrance to the living room and took in the casual scene: Dawn sitting on the floor with a bottle of nail polish, and Spike shirtless, reclining on the couch, one hand moving tentatively to rest on Buffy's knee.  
  
"Oh," she continued with a stiff smile. "This is one of those uncomfortable moments I hate. Buffy, glad you're all right; I was worried when you weren't around for lunch. And Spike, nice to see you're back; sorry about the depressed-sex-thing."  
  
Spike nodded. "Not a problem." The foot closest to him made sharp contact with his hip. "I mean, um." His eyes widened in mock concern. "You said something's happening?"  
  
"Some sort of apocalypse?" Dawn asked.  
  
"No," Anya said.  
  
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"Much worse than that," Anya added. "Remember I told you some weird foreign customer was coming to the shop today? Well." She turned to the door, which was still partially open. "Where did he go? Hey! Foreigner!"  
  
The door opened further, and a familiar man entered the room behind Anya, his arms filled with large, dusty books, his face somber and full of purpose.  
  
Buffy swung her legs to the floor and stared at the man in shock. "Wesley?"  
  
Spike groaned. "Didn't I tell you to sod off once already?"  
  
Dawn looked from the man in the doorway to Spike and back. "What's going on?"  
  
"Hello, Buffy." Wesley said, setting his books down on the coffee table. "I'm sorry, but there's little time for catching up. After re-examining the prophecies of Aberjian, and cross-referencing them with some texts Anya was able to provide, I believe that the End of Days is well on its way."  
  
"Of course," Buffy muttered.  
  
Wesley squared his shoulders and took a step closer to the couch. "Like it or not, Spike, you will play a central role in these final battles. You can't turn your back on this. It's very clear from my research that the fate of the world rests solely on your." He trailed off, looking confused. "Are you wearing mascara?"  
  
(tbc) 


	9. Part Nine

Part Nine  
  
Massive thanks to two amazing betas, Maggie and kittyb90, who gave me tons of help and ideas, and kept me from giving up on this chapter entirely.   
The Team of Destiny is an actual organization. If you are a member of this organization, I'm sorry if I've misrepresented you, but I wasn't able to find a lot of information about you. Please feel free to e-mail me.   
Spoilers for the Angel Season 3 finale.  
  
  
  
  
"Bad enough I'm everyone's froofy man-bitch," Spike griped as he entered the dining room, his face still damp from washing off the makeup. "You gotta dress me up like a woman too?"  
  
"We didn't actually *dress* you like a woman," Buffy mocked, her arms folded across her chest as she sat back against one of the dining room chairs.  
  
"None of Buffy's dresses were long enough," Dawn added without raising her eyes from the laptop in front of her. "And Buffy said I'd be irreparably damaged from seeing your parts."  
  
Anya reached over a pile of books and into the bowl at the center of the table. "Why, cause it's bent?" She looked up questioningly as she popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth.   
  
Buffy put her hand over her face, looking as if she was unsure whether she should laugh hysterically or just crawl under the table.  
  
"Bent?" Dawn suddenly lost interest in the computer screen. "What's bent?" she demanded, looking to Buffy and then Anya. "You mean….*ew!*"  
  
"If we could remain focused on the impending destruction of the Earth…" Wesley sat with a pencil resting against his forehead, his eyes tired.  
  
Spike scowled across the table at the man as he took the remaining chair next to Dawn. "Are you still here?"  
  
"How did it get bent?" Dawn whispered to him, genuinely curious about this newfound knowledge.  
  
"Guys, come on," Buffy said, leaning forward. She fought through a giggle and attempted her best tone of authority. "If there's an apocalypse coming, we need to be on top of it."  
  
Spike's tongue made a brief appearance on his lower lip. "Oh I know exactly what you'll be on top of, Slay - *ow!*" He put his hand to his eye as the piece of popcorn which had struck him bounced into his lap.  
  
"Isn't it a little early for an apocalypse?" Dawn huffed as she returned to her work. "Usually they don't happen until like, spring."  
  
"This isn't just an apocalypse," Anya corrected. "This is the End of Days, with capital letters and everything."  
  
Spike brushed the attacking popcorn to the floor, leaned his chair back, and put one foot on the table. "Been there, done that." He pointed at Wesley accusingly. "And we've filled our quota of British guys, so get out."  
  
Wesley gestured to the open book in front of him. "Spike, if you would just listen to the proph -"  
  
"Found it!" Dawn looked up from the monitor and grinned triumphantly.   
  
"Found what?" Spike asked, peering over her shoulder.  
  
"Wesley said the description of the first battle kept including the word 'destiny'," Dawn explained to him. "And there was a picture, see?" She reached across the table and pulled Wesley's book closer to them. In the corner of a page of indecipherable text was an illustration of what looked like a letter 'S', stretched out to resemble a river, or possibly a curved lightning bolt. Dawn gestured to the screen, where a similar design wound its way through photos of smiling couples.  
  
Buffy opened her mouth to toss a piece of popcorn in, paused to consider the action a moment, and then decided instead to throw it at Spike's other eye. "Damn," she muttered to herself as it bounced off his temple.  
  
"Team of destiny dot com," Dawn announced. "It's got all this vague stuff about *'making dreams come true' *and *'the power of a team'*. But it's password-protected, so I can't see any more specific stuff."  
  
"I felt that, bitch," Spike said without looking up.  
  
"Can't you just, you know…" Anya held out her hands and mimed typing by waggling her fingers. "Hack through it?"  
  
Dawn shook her head. "My internet skills pretty much peak at the Google search."  
  
Spike moved closer and read off the website. "*'Enjoy the rewards of life while pursuing worthwhile goals and aspirations.'* It's a cult," he said confidently." And it's got nothing to do with me."  
  
"It has everything to do with you,"' Wesley argued. He let the pencil fall to the table, and his eyes flared with anger. "There's a prophecy about the end of days that specifically refers to the vampire with a soul."  
  
"Then go bother the other one," Spike snapped. "I'm sure the prancing pillock can take time out of his busy schedule of combing his hair and trying to develop a third facial expression."  
  
"You have a soul?" Dawn squealed.  
  
Anya looked over at him, equally stunned. "Angel has two facial expressions?"  
  
Dawn gave Spike an exploratory poke in the side. "You don't seem any different."   
  
"Hey! Cut it out!" Spike tried to worm away from her, but his obvious discomfort only made her more determined. After receiving a particularly hard jab in his ribs, he slapped her arm away from him.   
  
"Aaaaaah!" Spike doubled over immediately, his head in his hands.  
  
"You seem the same to me." Dawn said with a wicked smile.  
  
"He smells like cantaloupes now," Buffy told her.  
  
"Is *that* what that is?" Dawn seemed relieved, as if a great mystery had just been resolved for her. "That smell's been driving me crazy all day. I thought we had some rotten fruit somewhere."  
  
"Do you feel any different?" Anya asked him.  
  
Spike raised his head. "I'm a little indigestive," he replied. "And I am not a rotten fruit!" he added, giving Dawn his best menacing look, which only made her giggle.  
  
"Angel's missing." Wesley's abrupt comment brought the room to silence instantly. "Both he and Cordelia haven't been seen for months, and our - " He winced. " - *his* team has no idea where they might be."  
  
Spike looked to Buffy to gauge her reaction, and was surprised that she didn't seem affected at all. The others followed his gaze, and Buffy responded by averting her eyes from them.  
  
"When I saw Angel," she said, her voice distant, as if trying to keep the memory remote. "Last year, when I first came back, he talked about her. About Cordelia. How she'd changed so much, what a hero she'd become." She looked up at her friends and smiled sadly. "Nothing like the ex moving on to push you further into the spiraling depression." The room was quiet, and the squeak of Spike's chair as he brought his leg down from the tabletop seemed deafening. "They're probably together. And they're probably fine. And I don't want to work with him on this." Her tone was resolute as she met Spike's eyes. "So you're it, soul man."  
  
Spike nodded almost imperceptibly. The scattered, dusty books on the table meant nothing to him, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let them tell him what to do. But if Buffy was asking…  
  
Wesley cleared his throat. "Actually, after doing further research, I'm not sure the prophecies are referring to Angel at all. The book of Aberjian, where I first saw this information, is difficult to translate, and very vague."  
  
"Vague prophecies? No way," Buffy mumbled sarcastically.  
  
"The Book of Nihttaehw, which I found recently in the Nevada desert, predates the Aberjian, and was written by a tribe whose language evolved into several modern-day languages, so it's much easier to decipher." He opened the book in front of him to a page he had marked and pointed at a passage with his pencil. "Whenever it mentions the vampire with a soul, it says, *"vidahmurtah cohn halmah ay forzoh conzehnzah"*. That translates as -"  
  
"The undead with a soul and a forced conscience," Anya interrupted. "Two things."  
  
"At first I thought they were merely being repetitive," Wesley explained. "But then I spoke with one of my contacts, a warlock in Nigeria, and he told me about a vampire he had met there recently - "  
  
"With a soul and a forced conscience," Spike concluded. "The chip." He sighed and lowered his head. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "This means I have to leave the house, doesn't it?"  
  
Wesley reached out to retrieve the book that Dawn had been looking at. "This is the Tome of Ecinoslom, which had previously only existed as fragments. But Anya had a full copy of the text. It was always thought to be a work of fiction based on the Biblical Revelations. However, I believe that it's actually a companion piece to Nihttaehw and Aberjian, spelling out the specific battles of the End of Days." He flipped back a few pages. "This word here: *niitaai* is an arcane spelling of -"  
  
"Could we skip the exposition?" Spike interrupted. "Just tell me what I gotta kill."  
  
Wesley held his pencil up in a tight fist, almost as if it was a weapon. "Why does everyone always interrupt me?" he shouted.  
  
"I liked you better when you were all British," Buffy commented softly.  
  
Wesley sighed. "I'm still British."  
  
Buffy gestured to his face. "Yeah, but now you got the whole facial hair thing going on. And where'd you get that cool scar?"  
  
"Slayer," Spike said. "A little respect for the apocalypse, please."  
  
"But when have the apocalypses ever respected me?" she said. Spike gave her a questioning frown, and she responded with a half-smile. "Sorry." She looked around at the others assembled at the table. "Sorry. I've just been holding onto that Angel story for so long; I'm all giddy now."  
  
Her eyes worked their way back to Spike just in time to catch him mouthing, "I like it."   
  
"So. Business." Buffy nodded determinedly to Wesley. "You and Anya keep doing the book thing, and I'll start rounding up the troops. You said this happens soon, right? So when? When does the world end?"  
  
Wesley placed the pencil in the center of the book. "A week from tomorrow."   
  
The others looked at him blankly for a moment, except for Anya, who was busy rearranging books to give herself better access to the snacks.  
  
"So you're telling me we have eight days to prepare to battle the armies of hell and prevent total Revalationy chaos?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Actually, you have seven and a half days," Anya said through a mouthful of popcorn. "And four separate battles."  
  
"And…in four different locations." Wesley added, forcing a smile. "But they all do appear to take place in North America."  
  
"Yay," Buffy said flatly.  
  
Wesley looked down at the book again. "The first is somewhere in the Midwest. The second appears to be Southern Canada. The third is on the East Coast, and the fourth is on the West Coast, possibly here in Sunnydale."  
  
"Road trip!" Dawn shouted out happily.  
  
Buffy put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. "Great. I'll have to quit my job; there's no way I can get a week off." She shrugged. "Well, you can get the council to help us out with the cash flow, right?" She caught Wesley's embarrassed expression and sat up straight again. "Right…?"  
  
"The council and I are….not on very good terms." Wesley lowered his head. "I was fired, as you know, and then there was an incident with Faith where -" He looked up at Buffy abruptly. "Wait a minute, you were *there*."  
  
"I was where?"  
  
"In LA, at Angel's," Wesley told her. "The Council came to capture Faith and we fought them off. How could you not remember?"  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry I wasn't taking notes on your life when I was trying to deal with Angel," Buffy said sarcastically.  
  
Wesley folded his arms across his chest. "Perhaps if you weren't so busy 'dealing' with Angel, I wouldn't have been fired in the first place."  
  
Buffy's eyebrows raised threateningly. "So now this is my fault? Angel's fault? Maybe if *you* weren't such a - "  
  
"Could we stop talking about poncy Angel already?" Spike cut in. "I'm about to start dry-heaving." He gave Buffy a dismissive wave of his hand. "And don't worry about money. I can just go knock off a convenience store or something."  
  
Buffy put her hand to her head as if in pain. "We can't save the world with stolen money."  
  
"Why not?" Spike asked. "Seems to me preventing all the rivers of blood and whatnot makes up for one minor unarmed robbery."  
  
"You can't commit a crime to do something good; they don't cancel each other out," Buffy attempted to explain. "It just doesn't work that way."  
  
"Well it should," Spike asserted, raising his eyebrows defiantly.  
  
"There's a bit more to the prophecy…" Wesley began, glancing down into his book and hesitating.  
  
"Let me guess," Spike said sardonically. He slouched back against the chair with an over-exaggerated sigh. "After the world ends, I turn into a frog."  
  
Wesley looked up at Spike, his chin high and proud. "Your reward is life, Spike. Provided that you can prevent the End of Days, you will turn human."  
  
"*Human?*" Spike sat up in his chair and stared at Wesley. "I don't want to turn human! Humans are all a bunch of sodding idiots."  
  
"Hey!" Dawn yelled.  
  
Spike put his hand on her shoulder. "Except for you, bit."  
  
Buffy cleared her throat loudly.  
  
"And your sister's not bad either."  
  
"I'm not a human so I'm not offended," Anya stated proudly.  
  
Spike pointed across the table at Wesley. "But *you* are a sodding idiot."  
  
"Will you stop pointing at me, already, you're like a ten-year-old chil -" His gaze shifted to Anya. "You're not human?"  
  
"And if that's the 'reward' for saving all you worthless gits, I'm out." Spike folded his arms across his chest defiantly.  
  
"Well, originally, yes," Anya explained. "But then I became a demon. And then I became human again. But then…"  
  
"You can't be *out*," Wesley insisted, returning his attention to Spike. "This isn't a game of rugby; it's the destruction of all creatures, man and animal, human and demon -"  
  
"Spike…" Dawn gazed at him with wide eyes and a piteous frown.  
  
"Don't think I'm falling for that tilted-head, sad-puppy-dog look," Spike said sternly. "That's *my* bit; I'm immune to it."  
  
"…and if you think about it, none of it was really my fault," Anya said.   
  
Wesley shut the book in front of him. "We're all going to die," he muttered.  
  
The chattering was immediately silenced when Buffy stood up, her face set in her familiar, determined, lead-the-men-into-battle expression. "So we got eight days. We can do this, but we're all going to have to get busy. Anya, I need you to take the computer and call Willow in England. The number's on the refrigerator. Try to get at least a location on this Team of Destiny thing. Wesley, open up that book again, and make sure we're chasing the right cult here. Dawn, take a walk to school while it's still light out; I'm pretty sure that the bookstore opened this week, so you can buy your books for this year."  
  
Dawn groaned softly at the thought of schoolbooks.  
  
"You better get moving," Buffy said firmly, but her face quickly softened into a smile. "You still have to pack."  
  
Dawn's eyes lit up. "I'm going?" She grinned and leapt from her chair with a squeal. "I'm going!"   
  
Buffy gestured to the front door.  
  
"I'm going," Dawn said, and she rushed from the room, still smiling widely.  
  
Buffy turned her attention towards Spike, and he regarded her warily.  
  
"Spike, go home."  
  
He raised a questioning eyebrow.  
  
"We'll need knives, axes, crossbows," she continued. "Anything pointy and sharp. And pack some clothes, provided that you like, have a second outfit. We could also use your car, if that's still around."  
  
He nodded. "Still got it. What about your mother's…?"  
  
"It needs a lot of repairs," she told him. "Lately I haven't had the cash. Plus yours is already vamp-proof. While you're at home, ask Clem to nose around the demon bars for word on the next big bad. If the apocalypse is coming to town, there should be signs already."   
  
"I'll also need - "  
  
"In the hall closet," she said with a slight smile. "And try not to singe any of the nicer blankets."   
  
She turned her attention towards the remaining two as Spike left the room. "We'll call the Magic Box daily to give you guys updates, and Wesley, you can stay here while we're gone." Her steely resolve seemed to weaken, and she put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. "The only problem now is how to finance our mini-crusade." She shot a guilty look towards the doorway. "Does it make me a bad person if I'm totally considering the unarmed robbery thing?"  
  
Anya sat up straighter in her chair and smiled at Buffy until she got her attention. "I can help," she chirped happily.  
  
"Help with money?" Buffy asked, beginning to look hopeful. "Really?"  
  
"Now, I'm not talking *lots* of money," Anya said quickly. "But I can spare some, and it should be enough. All I ask in return is that I officially get credit for helping to save the world. And the guarantee of a high-quality afterlife, despite any past or future indiscretions."  
  
"That's not really my decision -"  
  
"Just say yes."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Anya stood up proudly. "Well then," she said. "What are we waiting for? Let's save the world."  
  
*  
  
"You know," Buffy said, looking down at her bed sadly. "Sometime I think, hey, I'm the Slayer. The Chosen One. I save people. Fight the big evil daily. Die and come back twice. There's nothing I can't face, no odds I can't overcome, no decision I can't make. And then…" She spread her hands to gesture at the two items on the bed. "This. I'm baffled."  
  
Dawn put her suitcase down on the floor and looked at the two white tank tops lying on Buffy's bed. "I like the cottony one."  
  
Buffy picked up the top by its thin straps. "I don't know. The other one's really comfortable, cause it's the built-in-bra type, but there's minimal support, which could be an issue when, you know, fighting big monster things."  
  
Dawn nodded. "Best to go with the bra and tank combination."  
  
Spike appeared at the doorway behind Dawn. "Got the car, stocked with weapons and bottled blood. And Anya's got a location, so we're ready to go."  
  
Buffy whined softly and turned her attention back to the two shirts.   
  
"What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
"Clothes emergency," Dawn told him.  
  
"Oh, for the love of my ass." Spike muttered, leaning his head against the doorframe.  
  
Buffy held up the two tank tops in front of her. "Which one is better?"  
  
Spike stared at the two identical shirts blankly. "They used to call me insane when I stuck railroad spikes through people's heads. But this reaches levels of psychosis that I've never even heard of."  
  
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Boys have no idea. Just take both."  
  
Buffy nodded and placed the two articles into her duffel bag. "You obviously got the brains in the family, Dawnie."  
  
"And somehow I managed to get the looks too," she said with a smirk. She picked up her suitcase and ducked away from her sister's fierce expression, walking out of the room and down the stairs.  
  
"Looks. Pfft," Buffy muttered. She leaned down to retrieve her boots, and discovered a second pair of boots underneath her bed.   
  
"Quite the aggravating bint, eh? Reminds me of you."  
  
"Uh-huh," Buffy said absentmindedly as she examined the four shoes before her. The brown ones would be good for running, but the black ones made her taller. Reason told her to take the brown ones; if they were going to be fighting, comfortable shoes were necessary. But she hated when she felt all short.   
  
Spike took in an uneasy breath. "So I suppose we need to have that uncomfortable relationship talk sometime soon."  
  
"Uh-huh." Still focused on her footwear dilemma, Buffy sighed in surrender and shoved both pairs into her already-overstuffed bag. She turned towards the doorway. "What?"  
  
Spike was doing that thing she hated where he seemed to stare holes into her body. His mouth was tight, as if approaching a difficult subject. The impending serious conversation made her skin crawl immediately.   
  
"Oh," Buffy said, feeling much like a deer right before it was flattened by a truck. "Talking, yeah. Um…no." She went back to her overflowing duffel and began trying to squash the clothing down so that she could zipper it. "No talking. Talking is bad and, um…" She stopped and took a deep breath, wondering why the idea of a conversation with Spike was far more frightening than so many other things they'd done together, things which were often carnal, perverse, and illegal in 28 states.   
  
She forced herself to look back at him. "Well, here's what I'm thinking," she explained. "Let's say we have some really god-awful, screaming, fighting, crying angst-o-rama, and then in a week or so, poof! End of days." Confident in her logic, she nodded gravely. "After we're dead, we'll feel pretty silly about going through all that for nothing."  
  
"I'm already dead."  
  
"You know what I mean." She turned back to her packing, putting the force of her slayer strength against the last protruding boot and managing to get her bag closed. "It's just…things are okay. They're almost…good." She smiled at the unintentional surprise in her voice. "I don't know how we did it, but we managed to make things almost good, and I just don't want to…"   
  
Eyes still down, she felt him behind her without seeing him move there. Maybe it was that part of her Slayerness that could sense vampires whenever they were close. Or maybe just a change in the air, a presence where there hadn't been one before. But there was something besides vamp energy that she could also feel: apprehension with a twinge of excitement, those ever-present sensations of a new relationship. Except that this wasn't new. Nor officially a relationship. The sixteen-year-old stomach butterflies and stammering didn't apply here, but the cynicism and loneliness of the past year didn't work anymore either. Out of all the old crap of her life, something incredibly new had appeared, and while it wasn't at all simple, it wasn't all bad either.  
  
"And then," she said. "When the earth isn't swallowed in a sea of molten lava or whatever, then we can talk."  
  
He rested one hand lightly against her hip and his voice tickled at her ear. "I bet you say that to all the boys."  
  
She closed her eyes and thought that she hadn't had a simple emotion in a long time. And she wasn't sure she missed them all that much.  
  
  
  
tbc 


	10. Part Ten

Redeeming Spike's Ass  
  
Part Ten  
  
*Song lyrics by Rancid. But it is NOT a song fic. Shut up.  
  
  
  
"I have to pee."  
  
"Bloody hell." Spike glanced into the rear-view mirror to look at Dawn, who was sitting cross-legged in the center of the backseat. "We just left an hour ago."  
  
"And now I have to pee," Dawn said firmly. "There's a gas station in a few miles; we can stop there."  
  
"Oh!" Buffy added excitedly. "And when we stop, we can switch drivers."  
  
"No," Spike said immediately.  
  
Buffy leaned against the passenger side door and gave him her best pouty frown. "Pleeeease?"  
  
"If we don't stop, my bladder could explode," came the voice from behind them.  
  
"You're the navigator," Spike explained, gesturing to the sheets of paper that lay neglected on the dashboard. "That's your job."  
  
"My job sucks." Buffy picked up the papers and regarded them as if they were poisonous. As she began reading the first one, she shook her head in mock disappointment. "Damn, Wes wrote the directions in British; you're gonna have to be navigator so you can translate."  
  
"And if my bladder explodes, I could die."  
  
"All right! We're stopping!" Spike gripped the wheel so tightly that the veins in his arms were easily visible. "Sweet buggering Jesus. Always thought you'd end up killing me, Buffy. Wouldn't have guessed it would be by aggravating me to death."  
  
"It's one of the less well-known Slayer powers," Buffy said with a smug smile.  
  
The gravel of the gas station parking lot crunched underneath the bulky black car. It was a small facility, with only two cars outside: a rusty red Jetta parked towards the back that presumably belonged to the clerk inside, and a typical SUV at the gas pump. Its occupants, two burly young men, were just finishing at the pump as the DeSoto pulled up behind them.  
  
Dawn dashed out of the car before Spike even put it into park.  
  
"Got the cash?" Spike asked.  
  
Buffy nodded and patted her front pocket.  
  
"Pick us up a pack of smokes, would you, love?"  
  
"No," Buffy said with a mocking chuckle as she opened the door and headed into the small building.  
  
She wandered around the aisles looking for fat-free pretzels, but found only one unhealthy snack after another. Finally she decided to go with the dairy-laden Cheese Nips, figuring that, if the world was going to end in a week anyway, it wouldn't matter if she gained some weight.  
  
"Aaaah, I feel so much better," Dawn said, nearly skipping as she met Buffy next to a display of Doritos. "Can I get a hot dog?"  
  
"No," Buffy teased. "You have to starve until we get to Michigan."  
  
"Michigan," Dawn said with a groan. "I thought the world would end in an exciting place, you know, like Rome or something." She made her way to a line of foul-smelling bins on hot plates and began assembling a unique concoction on top of the helpless hot dog.  
  
The sound of a door opening made Buffy look up, and she saw Spike enter and move towards the beverage cases in the back. He'd taken his jacket when they left Sunnydale and was wearing it again now, which seemed to enhance his characteristic strut. Knowing him as she did, Buffy found this badass façade almost laughable. But the two other customers, both substantially larger than Spike, went out of their way to walk to the front counter without passing by him.  
  
Buffy turned away from her sister's repulsive eating habits to take in the show. He opened the soda case with his arm held a little too high and shot a piercing look inside, like he might have to slay the Pepsis if they made any sudden moves. But at the same time he adopted a casual stance, one slender hip out, all his weight on that leg. It seemed to say, "Yeah, maybe I'll kill you, or maybe I'm just too unbelievably cool to kill you." He had a body that, if human, would be dangerously malnourished, but at that moment he filled the room.  
  
*I could destroy him.*  
  
The thought came out of nowhere, and Buffy took a quick breath in at an unfamiliar emotion.  
  
It wasn't hatred, or anger. And though there was pride in this knowledge, that wasn't what appealed to her.  
  
*I could destroy him. Mr. Too-Unbelievably-Cool, who can decapitate a demon with his bare hands, and intimidate anyone on earth, is at my total mercy. I've come so close before, hurt him so much, reduced him to nothing, and I wasn't even trying then. And while I wouldn't ever try, wouldn't ever throw away what I've found here, I.could.*  
  
There was something in that, something in the knowledge that she wouldn't, but *could*. Something familiar.  
  
"Earth to the bleached blondes in the store!" Dawn was standing at the counter with a paper plate, her hot dog invisible underneath a pile of unidentifiable condiments. Her shout broke the spell of Buffy-watching- Spike-watching-various-carbonated-beverages, and Buffy hurried to the register to pay for their food.  
  
"Get a map," Spike said as he swaggered up behind them. "I can get us to 70 once we reach LA, but then you gotta find Interstate 80."  
  
"It would probably be easier for *you* to find Interstate 80 on the map," Buffy said without turning around. "You know, if I was driving." She handed Dawn a five dollar bill. "And I do not bleach my hair."  
  
"And based on that statement, you're obviously far too delusional to be operating a vehicle." There was the click of a lighter as Spike turned and walked back outside.  
  
"So the clock in there said seven," Dawn said as they carried their food out. "I figure we should drive all night, what with our vampire situation. I don't mind sleeping in the car a little, and then we could sleep a little more in some motel, right?"  
  
"Sounds good." Buffy opened her bag of Cheese Nips as they approached Spike, who was leaning against the hood of the car with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Of course, if the big whiny-ass would give up the wheel, we could make some time during the day too."  
  
Spike exhaled smoke through his nose slowly as he narrowed his eyes at her. "We've got two days to get there; we'll make it."  
  
Buffy stopped in front of him and nodded at the cigarette. "Hello? Fire hazard much?"  
  
He responded by flicking his ashes towards the gas pumps.  
  
Once they were all inside the car, Buffy grabbed the half-smoked cigarette from his mouth and tossed it out her window.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Secondhand smoke kills," she said as she adjusted the seat to lean back slightly.  
  
"Yeah, and occasionally so do loveable ensouled vampires," Spike added, shifting the car into drive.  
  
As they drove back onto the highway, the steady motion began to make Buffy tired, and she curled up against the seatback. She's barely slept the night before, and it was beginning to catch up to her, like a weight on her temples. "So Dawn," she said through a yawn. "What's this thing we're going to again?"  
  
"Well, Anya couldn't find out a lot," Dawn explained. "But the online newsletter said the Team of Destiny is having a meeting in Flint, Michigan Thursday night. Wesley said that should be when big whatever goes down."  
  
"That all the information we got?" Spike asked with an annoyed scoff. "Wanker couldn't find out if it was a gang of vampires or a giant snake demon or."  
  
"I don't like those," Buffy muttered, her eyes slowly closing.  
  
"Bit, hand me a tape from back there, would ya'?"  
  
Buffy heard a rustling behind her, followed by Dawn's stern voice: "Not System of a Down. That stuff makes my teeth rattle."  
  
"Fine," Spike replied with an exaggerated sigh. "Pick one of the ones you like then."  
  
"You mean one of the ones that probably won't make my ears bleed?"  
  
"Yeah, one of those."  
  
The loud drone of the car seemed to fade, and Buffy found herself halfway into a restful sleep. The music that began a few minutes later was surprisingly mellow for Spike's tastes, and she almost enjoyed hearing him sing along.  
  
"Never fell in love, 'till I fell in love with you. Never knew what a good time was 'till I had a good time with you."  
  
As she gradually gave in to sleep, Buffy thought that, Armageddon aside, this probably wouldn't be a bad trip. She heard the clunking of Dawn looking through tapes, the twist of a cap as a bottle was opened, and the subdued singing of Spike beside her, and realized that there weren't two people on earth who she was more comfortable with at this moment.  
  
Suddenly there was a rumbling sound, and it took her a moment to recognize that it was a guitar. Then the volume surged, and she was shaken awake.  
  
"Here it is! Here I am! Turn it up, *fucking loud!*"  
  
Spike was singing at the top of his lungs now, and what had started out as a tolerable song had exploded into a punk chorus. He was practically shouting along with the lyrics, one hand on the wheel, the older holding a 40 ounce bottle of Olde English.  
  
"Radio radio radio radio radio radio radio! When I got the music, I got a place to go! Radio radio radio radio radio ra - "  
  
Buffy pounded her hand against the tape deck, and the car was plunged into silence.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"This concludes the music portion of our program." She gestured to the alcohol as he took another gulp from the oversized bottle. "And, excuse me, Dr. Dre. Could we possibly not do the drinking and driving thing?"  
  
Spike rolled his eyes and screwed the top back on the bottle. Dawn immediately reached up to take it from him.  
  
"Is she always this bossy?"  
  
"Yep," Dawn replied.  
  
"Sleeping now," Buffy said, curling up once again. "Aggravating Spike later."  
  
She could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. "I look forward to it, you crazy bitch."  
  
*  
  
When Buffy woke up, the steady sound of crickets chirping was the only noise. Still drowsy from what seemed like a marathon sleep, she kept her eyes closed as she tried to become aware of her surroundings, but it was impossibly quiet. Then there was a breath - a long inhale, though she hadn't sensed a person before, following by an exhale, and the smell of smoke.  
  
"I had a dream about you," she said, her voice still weak from sleep.  
  
"Nice and dirty, I hope," he replied. There was a faint patting sound, and the cigarette smell began to dissolve.  
  
She kept her eyes shut, trying to recall the details. "I bought a condo. It was such a good price; I couldn't turn it down, even though I still had the house. You were there, and you told me to sublet it."  
  
He laughed softly. Since his cigarette was extinguished, and the accompanying breath ceased, it was the only sound besides the crickets. It rumbled, as if coming from the depths of his chest. With her eyes closed, it seemed as if this - his low, quiet laugh - was the only thing present in the night. She opened her eyes.  
  
He was looking straight ahead, the meager light from a gas station window just barely illuminated the angles of his face. The night was that intense dark that comes less than an hour before daybreak, drowning out nearly everything in sight. The crickets continued their steady twittering, but otherwise the earth seemed barren, and she thought that it would be safe to kiss him, lost in this big empty space.  
  
And suddenly she felt a wave of remorse so powerful that she had to look away from him, focusing instead on the slight glow of the smoldering cigarette in the ashtray between them. When they'd kissed previously, in the day since his return, it was always a prelude to sex, which was easy and familiar between them. When she'd said, 'I love you' it wasn't as hard as she would've imagined; the feeling had grown in her slowly enough. But earlier that evening, in her bedroom, when they'd exchanged only the slightest touch, she'd nearly panicked.  
  
The tiny red light dimmed until it was only a pinprick in the blackness, and then disappeared.  
  
*I want to apologize, but I don't think I can even explain what's wrong. I don't understand why I can laugh at the things I used to be afraid of, but the things that should come naturally scare me. I don't understand why I can sleep so easily next to you and not look at you when I wake up. I don't understand why I feel like I can only kiss you when the world's ended. *  
  
"Dawn's gonna need some money," he said, saving her from her thoughts. He turned his head towards her with a slight tilt, and if he could sense her uneasiness, he didn't show it. "This place sells ice cream."  
  
Buffy sat up and looked out the window at the convenience store and the highway beyond it. "Where are we?"  
  
"Just outside Colorado, I think, but we'll have to stop at the next exit; almost morning."  
  
Buffy nodded and opened the car door, stretching her legs out one at a time before getting out of the car.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
Her body tensed, and for a moment she was terrified that somehow he'd managed to read her thoughts, and now he'd call her on it, make her explain..  
  
"Tell her not to forget my chocolate cone," Spike said. And he lit another cigarette.  
  
*  
  
When they stopped at the motel, the edges of the sky were already beginning to lighten. Dawn walked inside main office confidently, her teenage maturity only slightly betrayed by the bubble-gum ice cream cone in her hand.  
  
Spike followed closely behind her. Though weary from driving, he'd found new strength in his mission to devour his ice cream as completely as possible. He leaned against the wall of the office, safely out of range of any surprise sunlight attacks, and concentrated on extracting each bit of chocolate from what remained of the chewed-up sugar cone.  
  
Buffy took her time catching up, still feeling lethargic from having slept too much. By the time she entered, Dawn was already negotiating with the clerk, and she smiled involuntarily at seeing her sister this way - knowledgeable, self-possessed, so far from the frightened young girl who'd once hidden from a hell god.  
  
"But if you could just put an extra like, cot, in the room," Dawn was saying to the middle-aged man. "Then you wouldn't have to charge us a lot more, right?"  
  
Buffy looked over at Spike just as he thrust his tongue into the bottom of the sugar cone to lick away the remaining ice cream, and suddenly she felt wide awake.  
  
"Actually," she said, moving to Dawn's side. "We should probably get two rooms." 


	11. Part Eleven

Redeeming Spike's Ass  
  
Part Eleven  
  
  
  
What amazed her the most was that he sighed.  
  
She wasn't surprised when, without opening his mouth, he emitted a guttural, primitive growl. She wasn't surprised when he grabbed her hips roughly, and she responded with equal fierceness, as if they were testing the limits of each other's bodies. And she wasn't even surprised when she found herself kissing the back of his neck lightly, and he hummed in response to the rare, tender touch.  
  
But when, moving down her body now, his hands gripping her so frantically that his fingertips left red marks which would take a day to fade, and yet his tongue so impossibly gentle that her body rose instinctively towards it, he sighed, a quick burst of air, almost imperceptible, and she was just..  
  
Amazed.  
  
*  
  
Spike lay nude on the center of the bed, the motel's gray sheets bunched up around his ankles, snapping his gum and contemplating the upcoming battles.  
  
It had been much too long since he'd had a decent fight. He'd made quick work of a vampire gang in Mexico on his way back to Sunnydale, but he was itching for a good apocalypse. And not some pansy-ass, tie-a-little-girl- to-a-tower thing. What he wanted was an army of demons, hungry for destruction, coming at him full-force. He imagined himself standing alone, his body bruised from the first wave of assault, his last axe lost, buried in a skull somewhere on the battlefield. As they approached, they'd see the thin, wounded figure and think he'd fall over at their slightest blow. But he'd surprise them - standing firmly as they moved to attack, blocking each of their carefully-planned maneuvers with only a small move of his arm, until at last he got bored with their repetitive war chants, and tore each one to pieces with his bare hands.  
  
The thought of such a fight was enough to arouse him physically, had he not already had sex four times that morning.  
  
The bathroom door banged open and Spike smiled at the familiar sound of her entrance.  
  
"I'm *so* disgusted with you right now."  
  
Spike looked up at her lazily. "Are you still going on about that?"  
  
Buffy's anger had overshadowed her modesty, and she stood in the doorway naked, her body damp from the steam that was beginning to rise from the running shower.  
  
"That was repulsive. I should throw your ass out of this room right now."  
  
Spike rolled his eyes. "It was only gum."  
  
"It was gum in a very bad place!" Buffy hissed at him.  
  
Spike raised an eyebrow suggestively. "A very good place, if you ask me. And besides, it didn't even stick to you. Don't see what the big deal is." He rolled over onto his side and pulled a pillow to his head.  
  
He heard Buffy sigh. "Go see if Dawn's awake. We have to get going."  
  
"Sleeping," Spike muttered.  
  
"Sleep in the car," she said firmly. "We're not going to make it on time without doing some daytime driving."  
  
And good morning to Bitchy Buffy, Spike thought as he rolled out of the bed and retrieved his clothes from the floor.  
  
Of course, without the occasional I-am-in-charge-here-shut-up-and-do-what-I- say attitude, she wouldn't be Buffy. He thought that was probably what made him fall for her initially: her strength, her power. Buffy was the hero, and in a way, that wasn't unlike being the villain; the only difference was who you killed. And he loved that, the way she killed, all determination and energy. When she dusted vampires without breaking a sweat, his body tingled at how casually she could destroy.  
  
He knew that when he revisited his fantasy of fighting off an army, she would be there, brawling just as viciously as he did, but with barely any injuries to show for it. And then, when the last body fell and the war was over, she would be next to him, flushed from the fight, barely showing her weariness, having not given him a second thought as the battle took place, but knowing that he would survive it as well. And as she looked at the victims around them with a smirk, a toss of her hair, and cavalier wisecrack, he would fall in love with her all over again. Because, in the end, Buffy was the real big bad.  
  
Still, it would've been nice to be roused by a blow job instead of a blunt command followed by the slamming of the bathroom door.  
  
They were staying on the west side of the building, so Spike was able to move easily down the row of motel rooms without stepping into the sunlight. He knocked on Dawn's door and shouted, "It's me. You decent?"  
  
"No, but I'm dressed," came the reply.  
  
Dawn was lying in bed, wearing sweatpants and a tank top that said "princess" in glittery silver letters. As Spike entered, she sat up in bed and yawned.  
  
"Don't tell me you two are tired of having crazy naked sex already," she said.  
  
"Nope," Spike said, sitting down at the foot of the bed. "I just pissed her off."  
  
"Wow, I'm so shocked," Dawn replied sarcastically.  
  
"It's all your fault for giving me some of your gum."  
  
"I so do not want to hear the rest of that story." Dawn tossed the sheet aside, got out of bed, and walked into the bathroom. "We don't have to leave already, do we?" she called back to him.  
  
"'Fraid so," Spike told her. "We got a ways to go, and we can't be showing up late for a battle."  
  
Dawn walked back out of the bathroom holding her toothbrush. "Does that mean Buffy's driving? We're gonna die before we even have a chance to fight anything."  
  
"You're riding shotgun, little bit, so I'm trusting you to keep us all intact."  
  
"Spike," Dawn said as she sat down on the bed again. "I'm the same height as you, and I'm only 16. In a year or so, I'll probably be taller than you. At that point, 'little bit' will be pretty much obsolete." She smiled wickedly. "Plus, you just keep getting thinner. I bet I could kick your ass pretty easily right now."  
  
Spike narrowed his eyes at her menacingly. "You will never be badder than me, so shut up, tiny girl."  
  
Dawn only chuckled in reply, and then began brushing her teeth thoroughly. "By the way," she said, her words barely decipherable, "I been meaning to ack you -"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Ack you," Dawn said, her voice garbled as she continued brushing. "Are you pwanning on turning ebil again or anything? Beeding up Buffy, kiwing her friends, sucking the world into a heww dimension, anything like that?"  
  
Spike knit his eyebrows together. "Not on my list of things to do."  
  
"Good," Dawn replied, her mouth still full of foamy toothpaste. "'Cause all the big bads, dere always all, 'I'm gonna kiw the Swayer.' They all want the big final battle with Buffy. So I figured, if you go all ebil, that's what you'd do." She stood up, walked into the bathroom, and spit into the sink. When she turned back around to face Spike, her expression was deathly serious.  
  
"And I won't let you," she said. "If you guys break up, or if you lose your soul or whatever, and you decide you're gonna fight Buffy to the death, I won't let you have that chance. You'll have to fight me, Spike, and when the time comes to decapitate you, it won't be all dramatic and stuff. I'll swing the sword, and I won't give you a chance to fight back."  
  
She held her chin a bit higher. "I won't hesitate."  
  
Spike stood and walked up to Dawn. She actually was the same height as him now, and with her shoulders squared and her head high, he could easily imagine her as a warrior. He smiled and rested his hands on her shoulders.  
  
"Sweetheart," he said. "I'd be disappointed in you if you did."  
  
Dawn smiled back, and closed her eyes as Spike leaned into her and kissed her quickly on the cheek.  
  
*  
  
The two women finished their grooming and packing more quickly than Spike had expected, and soon they were both shouting outside the bathroom door as he showered.  
  
"I'm not saying you're a bad driver, just that you don't have a license."  
  
"So? Spike doesn't have a license, and you don't complain about him driving."  
  
"'Cause he's like, a hundred. And he's never crashed a car, like you did that one time with mom's."  
  
"Oh, he has so! Why do you think they had to replace that 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign? And he wrecked Giles' old car too."  
  
"Yeah, but he did the world a favor by wrecking that car."  
  
"And there were extenuating circumstances when I crashed mom's car."  
  
"Oh, whatever. I'm just saying that, when I get my permit this year, I have car authority over you."  
  
"Fine. Whatever. The next apocalypse, you can drive."  
  
Spike stepped out of the shower just as Buffy was opening the door.  
  
"Hey! Naked parts!" Spike held up the towel to shield himself from Dawn's view, but she was already exiting the room.  
  
"Are you *still* not ready?" Buffy said, exasperated.  
  
Spike began to towel himself off. "Ever hear the expression about catching more flies with honey, Slayer? You could try, 'How are you, Spike? Can I get you a blanket for the car? My, you look dammed sexy when you're soaking wet.'"  
  
"We're ready to go," Buffy said, ignoring his comment. "Hurry the hell up."  
  
"Why, thank you, Buffy, I'd appreciate a blanket very much. That way, when you inevitably drive us into a guardrail, the sun won't fry me as I'm thrown from the wreckage."  
  
"Fine, I'm getting you a blanket," Buffy said with an over-exaggerated sigh as she turned and walked away.  
  
Spike watched her grab one of the dingy blankets from the motel bed and carry it out towards the car, and frowned, feeling strangely uneasy about their exchange. The verbal sparring between them had always been nearly as fun as the physical fighting, but something about the way they'd just interacted bothered him.  
  
Because it should be different now.  
  
This was what he'd wanted: to be a part of her life, to fight beside her, to have her wake up with him and not be ashamed of who she'd slept with. He had that now. But unless they were in a bed at the time, she still froze when he reached for her, and she never moved to kiss him. Was that just her? Just part of her power, that she couldn't allow herself to be soft? But he knew there were times when she had been soft, people she'd been soft with. So then.was it him?  
  
Spike tried to shake the thought from his mind as he got dressed and gathered his meager belongings. He hadn't slept in almost two days now, and it was making him all annoyingly introspective. He'd have a good rest on their way to Michigan, kill some things, and then feel much better.  
  
Besides, he thought as he walked outside, she said she loved him, and that should be enough.  
  
*Part Twelve Coming Soon!* 


	12. Part Twelve

Redeeming Spike's Ass Part Twelve  
  
*Thanks to Kes for doing the beta, and to my sister Talula for some of the jokes.  
  
  
  
"Xander."  
  
Buffy frowned, considering this, as she switched into the left lane of Interstate 80. "Six beers. Jonathan."  
  
Dawn shuddered visibly. "A pint of vodka." She reached into the plastic bag at her feet and took out a bottle of Diet Pepsi. "Okay, how about Ben, the morphing half-hell-god doctor?"  
  
"Without the evilness?" Buffy shrugged. "Two mixed drinks. He was cute enough."  
  
There was a rustling noise behind them, followed by a deep, groggy voice. "What the hell are you two going on about?"  
  
Buffy glanced into the rearview mirror, but all she saw was a lumpy blanket stretched out across the back seat. "It's a game. How much you'd have to drink to make out with someone."  
  
Dawn turned around in her seat and smirked at Spike. "So how much did Buffy have to drink to make out with you?"  
  
Spike looked back at her lazily. "My body is the perfect drug."  
  
"Ew," Dawn said. "Go back to sleep."  
  
With an unintelligible grunt, Spike pulled the blanket over his head.  
  
"Your turn," Buffy prompted. p "Oh, right." Dawn turned forward quickly. "How about.Xander's uncle Rory?"  
  
Buffy's face contorted with disgust. "Why do you torture me?"  
  
"Because in 1995 you threw away my Barbie convertible," Dawn replied immediately.  
  
"There was a mouse nesting in it," Buffy explained. "Not just a mouse, Dawn, a mouse and its *nest*. Mom saw it too. We were completely justified. And also, hello, it was seven years ago. Time to move on."  
  
"The memory of that evil will fester in my soul forever," Dawn said. "Speaking of which." She gestured to the back seat and looked to her sister questioningly.  
  
Buffy nodded in agreement with the unspoken remark. "The weirdness just keeps coming, doesn't it?"  
  
"Well, you can look at it like, 'Hey, at least my life's not boring.'" Dawn's eyes shone with the promise of gossip. "So spill. Tell me everything. The PG-13 version, at least."  
  
Buffy shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. "There's not much to tell."  
  
"Not much?" Dawn challenged. "What about the making up? Accusations and forgiveness? Wacky prophesies? Possible human Spike?"  
  
"I told him I love him," Buffy said softly.  
  
Dawn's mouth fell open, and she stared at Buffy for a moment, unsure of what she'd actually heard. "You told him...oh my god." She held her breath for a moment, waiting for Buffy to continue. "And? Then what?"  
  
"And." Buffy let out an embarrassed chuckle. "And then I said I didn't want to talk about it."  
  
"Avoidance much?"  
  
"Mind your own business much?"  
  
"No, as a matter of fact, I don't." Dawn kicked aside her bag of snacks and retrieved one of their maps from the floor. "Anyway, I think we can get through Illinois by late tonight, stop at a motel for a little while, and then have plenty of time to get to Flint before tomorrow afternoon." She looked up, her face brightening with excitement. "You know what would be cool? Stopping for a real dinner, instead of just fast food and chips in the car."  
  
"You mean like a restaurant?"  
  
Dawn shrugged and returned to the map. "Maybe just a Denny's or something. I'm guessing that by the time the sun sets, we'll be around Des Moines. We could stop there."  
  
"Look at you, all being-with-the-plan girl," Buffy said with a smile.  
  
Dawn sat up proudly in the passenger's seat. "I'm the brains of the operations. You know, since you so obviously can't handle that role."  
  
"Skank," Buffy muttered in response.  
  
The car slowed down as they approached a semi, and Dawn stared out the window at the unvarying landscape. After a moment staring out at an unbroken line of trees, she glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping form in the backseat.  
  
"It's like having a constant air freshener." She turned to her sister. "Did Angel ever smell fruity?"  
  
"I don't think so," Buffy replied. "It was more like.firewood and Drakkar. Of course, evil Angel had an entirely different smell." She shrugged. "You know, an evil smell."  
  
"But he's the same," Dawn said, still looking behind her. "Spike, I mean. Other than the cantaloupe thing. He's not all tormented or anything."  
  
Buffy shook her head. "Still just Spike."  
  
"So why's it different?" Dawn asked, turning around again. "Before it was all big-unhealthy-relationship thing. So what changed?"  
  
"I guess.we did." Buffy smiled weakly as she checked her blind spot to pass the truck. "It was just like, in an instant, we saw each other, and we said thank you, and then.it was all different."  
  
"Wow." Dawn leaned back against the seat. "So that's it then? Love, happiness, and everything's okay." She looked sideways suspiciously. "*Is* everything okay?"  
  
Buffy drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel nervously. "I dunno. I mean, sometimes it's really good. Like when we're in bed together and we're -"  
  
"PG-13 version!" Dawn put her hands to her ears, prepared to block out any unwanted information.  
  
"- *sleeping*," Buffy finished with a pointed look to her sister. "When we're both about to go to sleep, or just waking up, I feel so comfortable. But then sometimes I'm near him and I just.I get nervous. It feels all weird."  
  
"So you love him when you're sleeping?" Dawn asked. "Well, unconscious love is better than nothing."  
  
"Not what I meant."  
  
"I know what you mean," Dawn said, suddenly serious. "You mean that when it's just you and him and nothing else to get in the way, that's when it feels right. But being around other people and other things messes it all up. It's not you, Buffy, or Spike; it's the rest of the world that causes problems."  
  
"Great," Buffy said. "So all I have to do is destroy the world, and then I can have a healthy relationship."  
  
"It would mean we don't have to go to Michigan anymore," Dawn teased.  
  
*  
  
Buffy looked inside the trunk at their bizarre assortment of supplies. There was her duffel bag, Dawn's suitcase, and a black bundle wrapped up with rope that she assumed were Spike's clothes. There was a small cooler, and when she peered inside she noticed that the ice covering the red-filled Poland Spring bottles was almost completely melted; they'd have to buy some more soon. But even more unusual than their exotic beverages were the assorted swords, knives and crossbows that took up the bulk of the space. Suddenly aware of how very different her life was from other peoples', Buffy looked over her shoulder to make sure none of the other travelers had noticed their cargo, retrieved the hairbrush she'd been looking for, and slammed the trunk shut.  
  
Dawn leaned against the side of the car, staring critically at the roadside diner they'd chosen. They'd been unable to locate a Denny's, as she had requested, but the sign on the highway advertised this place with foot-tall letters proclaiming, "Krispy Kreme Donuts Delivered Daily", and Buffy had been unable to resist.  
  
"Did you wake him up?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Tried to. He muttered something about me buggering myself and went back to sleep."  
  
Buffy opened the back door of the car. "Spike. Donuts."  
  
In a moment Spike was standing outside the car, his blanket discarded, running his hand through his hair and blinking at the grimy metal building through eyes still muddled from sleep.  
  
"Come on," Buffy said, already moving towards the entrance. "I want to get out of Illinois before sunrise."  
  
"Donuts," Spike mumbled as he hurried to catch up with them.  
  
*  
  
"And then the guy said, 'You look like an angel who just fell from heaven'. And Anya said, 'If I'm an angel who fell from heaven, that would make me Satan, so don't even mess with me.'" Dawn took a sip of her water. "The Bronze with Anya is so much fun. You should come with one night."  
  
Across the booth, Spike rubbed his eyes and yawned into his coffee. "If the world doesn't end."  
  
"Oh, come on," Dawn said with a chuckle. "Who's gonna get by us? The Baddest Slayer Ever, the Sword-Wielding Key, and the Kick-Ass Cantaloupe Vampire. We're unstoppable."  
  
Spike removed a half pint of vodka from the inside of his jacket and poured some into his cup. "Yeah, we're a killing machine," he said without enthusiasm.  
  
Buffy approached the table with her hair neatly combed and pulled back into a ponytail. "Better?" she asked Dawn. "No more car hair?"  
  
"No more car hair," Dawn said with a nod. She pointed at a small glass on the other side of the table, which was currently being threatened by Spike's elbow as he sighed in exhaustion and leaned closer to the steam rising from his drink. "Got your OJ."  
  
Buffy sat down on the edge of the bench and nudged Dawn further into the booth. "Great, can you hand that to me?"  
  
Dawn attempted a pointed look as she moved the glass closer, but Buffy buried her face in a menu. Dawn had obviously placed the drink there to get her to sit next to Spike. She scanned the selection of deep-fried crap and mentally kicked herself for talking to Dawn about him. Bad enough her life as a Slayer was preordained; she didn't need her orange juice handing her a destiny too.  
  
"I think I should go call Anya," Dawn said suddenly. "See if she has any new info for us." She poked Buffy's shoulder.  
  
Buffy recognized Dawn's motive - getting her and Spike alone - and didn't move from her seat. "We'll both call her, after dinner."  
  
Dawn frowned. "Well, I have to go to the bathroom."  
  
"No you don't," Buffy said without looking up from the menu.  
  
"You can't see into my bladder."  
  
"Yes I can."  
  
"Ew."  
  
"Part of my special slayer powers," Buffy said, scanning the appetizers.  
  
Dawn folded her arms across her chest. "Well, part of my special Key powers is knowing when someone is being a big stupid coward."  
  
"Well, part of my special Slayer powers is knowing when someone isn't keeping a secret."  
  
"Part of my powers is remembering that you never said it was a secret."  
  
"Part of my powers is kicking you in the face."  
  
"Oh will you *shut up*!" Spike shouted, his hand to his head as if he was in pain. "Bloody hell, if I'd known how annoying you two were, I'da let Dru destroy the world back when we had the chance." He took a gulp of the coffee and then withdrew his liquor from his coat again. "What the bloody hell are you even talking about?"  
  
"Nothing," they both said. Buffy flipped a page in the menu so hard that it tore, and Dawn turned to look out the window.  
  
Spike finished off the coffee quickly and then took a shot straight from his bottle.  
  
"You can't drive if you drink all that," Buffy said.  
  
"I can't drive if have to be sober and listen to the two of you yammering on."  
  
Ignoring him, Buffy turned another page of the menu and scowled at the lack of selection.  
  
"I already ordered you a salad," Dawn said. "Told them no dressing and nothing gross like eggs and anchovies."  
  
Buffy sighed happily as she closed the menu. "My hero. You are completely redeemed."  
  
Spike looked up from his near-empty bottle, eyebrows raised. "Oh, is *that* all it takes?"  
  
She smirked at him playfully. "Shoulda checked with Dawn before going on that little quest of yours, huh?"  
  
Spike leaned back against the discolored plastic window that separated them from the next booth and laughed. The sight was so unusual - a vampire, extra-pale from the harsh lighting of a Midwestern diner, eyes seeming small with fatigue, hair disheveled, a slim bottle of cheap vodka in his hand, laughing uncontrollably and loudly enough to cause the other patrons of the restaurant to turn and stare - that the two women across from him couldn't help but start giggling themselves. Buffy felt the stiffness of the long drive melt from her body as she laughed, and she thought that, if the three of them could laugh like this, every obstacle - from the end of the world to the precarious relationship she'd entered into with the man who sat across from her - could be dealt with. It wouldn't be easy, because nothing ever was, but it was possible.  
  
The waitress arrived with a salad, a hamburger for Dawn, and six donuts on a plate, which she set down in front of Spike, immediately cutting short his laughter. He attacked the food with such ferocity that Buffy wouldn't have been surprised if he'd gone into vamp face.  
  
"You're eating *donuts* for dinner?" she asked critically.  
  
"Yeah," Spike said through a mouthful of chocolate glazed. "And you're eating dry salad. So which one of us is abnormal here?"  
  
"Both of you," Dawn said she reached for the bottle of ketchup. "Now shut up already. We need to figure out a battle plan."  
  
Spike washed down his donut with another shot of vodka. "Simple. I get the demons, Slayer gets the humans."  
  
"Actually, definition of a Slayer - " Buffy told him. "The one who gets the demons."  
  
Spike pointed to his forehead. "Chip."  
  
"So? I'm not killing people just because you can't."  
  
Spike rolled his eyes. "You don't have to kill them. Just.knock them unconscious or something while I fight their evil demon overlord."  
  
"What if I want to fight the evil demon overlord?" Buffy whined.  
  
Dawn dropped her half-eaten burger into her plate and groaned loudly. "How have you two ever managed to fight *anything* together?"  
  
Buffy shrugged and turned her attention back to her food. "Mostly we've just fought each other."  
  
Spike nodded. "And a damn good time it's been." He set a half-eaten donut onto his plate and reached across the table.  
  
The moment Buffy felt his hand against hers, she jumped, her knee striking the table, causing a noisy rattling of silverware. She looked up with wide, panicked eyes into his face - where a mixture of dejection and confusion was quickly coloring with anger.  
  
She felt like she should say something, but the words wouldn't come. It was too weird to apologize for the reflexive movement, and she was sure 'I'm sorry you skeeve me out a little,' wouldn't help matters at all. So instead she just stared as his expression hardened, until he got up from the table so brusquely that it overturned his empty cup, and stalked towards the door.  
  
"Buffy?" Dawn said, so softly that it was barely more than a breath. Buffy closed her eyes briefly. It was one thing for her to screw up things with Spike, but the grief in her sister's voice reminded her that this wasn't just another chapter in *Driving Away Your Significant Other: The Biography of Buffy*; Dawn was getting hurt too.  
  
She opened her eyes at a familiar stomping of boots, and looked up to see Spike grab his donuts from the table, unconcerned about the sugar and chocolate that immediately covered his fingers, shove them in his jacket pocket, and then exit the restaurant again.  
  
"I should go after him," Buffy said, standing up. She took a tattered envelope from her pocket and handed it to Dawn. "Can you pay?"  
  
Dawn nodded. "I'll have them wrap up your salad too." She glanced to the door nervously. "He can't be that mad, right?"  
  
"Don't worry about it," Buffy told her. "Get us a dozen Krispy Kremes to go, and we'll be just fine."  
  
She found Spike standing at the railing of the landing in the front of the diner, furiously sucking on a cigarette, and chastised herself for chasing after him when she still had no idea what to say. She settled for an old favorite. "What the hell is wrong with you, Spike?"  
  
He turned to her with his eyes narrowed and a sarcastic smirk, and for a moment Buffy missed the long-ago time when that particular Spike-facial- expression meant 'Let's beat the crap out of each other' and not 'Let's talk about our relationship'.  
  
"Sorry, love, just a bit of confusion it seems," he spat out. "Didn't realize that 'I love you, come save the world with me' translated as 'Don't touch me'. My mistake." He took another hard drag from the cigarette and then flicked it into the parking lot.  
  
Buffy swallowed hard, her throat tightening as she summoned the words. "I do.love you. And I said I didn't want to have this conversation. Not now, when he have bigger problems."  
  
"There's *always* bigger problems," Spike said, glaring at her threateningly. "But if you think I'm going to follow you around like a dog while you run away from me -"  
  
"Dammit, Spike!" she interrupted. "The apocalypse is starting *tomorrow afternoon*. We don't have time for this! And.and I didn't ask for you to follow me around. I didn't ask for anything from you. If you hate me so much, what are you even doing - "  
  
"You dim-witted bitch!" He shouted, his hands clenching into fists. "If I hated you, would I even be here? Do you think I enjoy dealing with your crap?"  
  
"I don't know *what* you want, Spike." Buffy felt her eyes getting wet, and she put her head down and tried to blink back the sudden emotion. "I don't know what else I can do, how to fix this. I don't even understand what's wrong!"  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
She looked up, surprised at the outburst, only to find that Spike was looking shocked as well. They exchanged confused looks. Someone was yelling, and it wasn't either of them. How odd.  
  
"I said shut up already!" They turned in the direction of the sound, and saw the source of it: a man in his thirties standing in the parking lot, bent over a smaller figure. As they watched, he struck it with his closed fist. Buffy took a step forward to see the scene more clearly, and gasped when she saw that the target of the blow was a boy no older than six, huddled on the ground next to a car.  
  
As they continued to watch, the man lifted the child, shook him roughly, and tossed him back on the hard pavement.  
  
She exchanged glances with Spike, and an unspoken plan was quickly agreed to. "Ladies first," he said with a gesture to the ground below.  
  
Buffy jumped over the railing and landed quietly on the ground. She cleared the short distance in a few steps, and smiled innocently when the man noticed her standing beside him.  
  
"Hi there," she said cheerfully. "Wanna see something cool?"  
  
Before he had a chance to react, Buffy's fist connected with his face. He staggered, but didn't fall, not until a kick swept his legs out from under him, and he landed with a thud beside the car.  
  
"Oh my god." A young woman rushed into the scene and reached down to gather the child in her arms. "Baby, are you okay?"  
  
"Mommy," the boy said weakly, burying his face in her shoulder.  
  
"This your car?" Buffy asked her.  
  
She shook her head, and loose strands of her unkempt hair fell over her sad eyes. "My boyfriend's."  
  
Buffy knelt beside the fallen body and took a ring of keys from his jacket pocket. The man groaned and stirred as Buffy handed the keys to the woman.  
  
"Hey," he said, attempting to push himself up into a sitting position.  
  
Buffy silenced him by poking the toe of her shoe in his ribs. "Get out of here," she told the woman.  
  
Her eyes lingered for a moment on the man below them. "But he."  
  
"Get out of here!" Buffy said firmly.  
  
The woman jumped slightly at the outburst, and then hurried to the car door. She hastily strapped her son into the passenger's seat and drove the car out of the parking lot. Buffy looked down at the man, who was now rubbing his jaw and staring angrily at her.  
  
"Lemme do you a favor, buddy," she said. "The next time you feel like smacking someone around, take a little trip to Sunnydale, California, and I'll be glad to take you on. Kay?"  
  
The man sneered at her through a mouthful of blood. "Mind your own business, bitch." He looked down the road, where his car turned a corner and disappeared. "I'm gonna kill that cunt for taking my car."  
  
Buffy put her hands on her hips and shook her head sadly. "Unfortunately, I can't seriously injure humans. It's a weird morality thing. So I guess I can't hurt you anymore." She smiled wickedly. "Spike?"  
  
In an instant he leapt from the landing, game face in place, and brought the heel of his boot down on the man's right kneecap.  
  
There were two simultaneous screams as the man's body pitched in pain and Spike collapsed beside him. Buffy looked up to the landing, where a small crowd from inside the diner was beginning to gather.  
  
"We have to get out of here," she said, reaching down and grabbing Spike's arm as he gripped his head and moaned.  
  
"Holy crap," Dawn said, rushing up beside them, her arms filled with take- out bags.  
  
"Get him up, I'll get the car," Buffy said, and she sprinted towards the DeSoto.  
  
Dawn knelt next to Spike's prone body and put her arm around his back. "Spike? Can you stand up?"  
  
He rubbed his forehead, still grimacing in pain. "Yeah," he said faintly.  
  
Dawn glanced at the man, who was making an odd sound that sounded like he was choking, and she shuddered at the sight of his leg, mangled from the knee down and already beginning to swell. She helped Spike to his feet, struggling under his weight. His face fell into her neck, and she put her hand on his head comfortingly.  
  
"You're gonna be okay, right?" Dawn asked, her voice shaky with worry.  
  
"Just fine, tiny girl," Spike said, his voice muffled.  
  
Dawn hugged him closer. "I'm not tiny."  
  
The car screeched up beside them and Buffy reached over to open the passenger's side door. Dawn helped a semi-conscious Spike into the seat, closed the door behind him, and got into the back.  
  
Buffy looked into the rearview mirror nervously as they drove off. "Never a dull moment, huh?"  
  
"I think I smashed my donuts," Spike said. His eyes still closed, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of sticky crumbs.  
  
"Smashed your *what*?" Dawn stretched so that she could see what Spike was doing. "I don't think you should be saying that in front of - oh. Donuts. It's okay, I bought more."  
  
The promise of Krispy Kreme healed Spike somewhat, and he reached back for the box slowly, his face still looking drawn and weak.  
  
"You know," Buffy said. "My official statement is that I'm horrified at what you did back there."  
  
"Fella's not going to be beating up on anyone anytime soon," he said. "Not going to be walking much either." He took a tentative bite of a plain glazed. "What'd you expect I'd do? Lecture him?"  
  
"I dunno," Buffy said. "Go bumpy-head and freak him out, maybe bat him around a bit. I didn't mean for you to make your own brain explode."  
  
Spike shrugged. "Be okay in an hour." Reinvigorated by the sugar, he finished off the donut quickly. "Besides, you know you wanted to cripple that stupid git, just didn't have the balls for it."  
  
Buffy sighed and tried to focus on the signs that would lead them back to the highway. "Could we not argue about this right now?"  
  
"Of course. Just put it in Buffy-denial-land with everything else."  
  
"Nothing is in Buffy-denial-land," she said, her voice rising.  
  
From the backseat, Dawn groaned loudly. "Does everything have to be an argument? I mean, really. Could you guys just be nice to each other for like, five seconds?" She leaned up in between the seats. "Spike, say something nice to Buffy."  
  
"I have a horrible head injury, you know." Spike said, pointing to his forehead.  
  
"Good, it'll help you be less like yourself," she said firmly. "Now say it, or else I'll tell Buffy what your favorite movie is."  
  
"Huh?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Nothing!" Spike shouted. He winced at the volume of his own voice and put his hand to his head. "Devious little bitch," he muttered.  
  
"Say it," Dawn prompted.  
  
Spike rolled his eyes. "Buffy, um.most of the time I don't want to kill you."  
  
"That'll have to do." Dawn turned to her sister. "Now, Buffy, kiss Spike. But not in a sex way, in a sweet way."  
  
"I'm driving," Buffy argued.  
  
"Pull over."  
  
"Since when are you in charge here?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Since I could tell Spike what you wrote in your journal about him," Dawn said with a devious grin.  
  
Spike's eyes widened. "Well, this sounds deliciously scandalous."  
  
Buffy hit the brakes hard and pulled into the shoulder of the ramp to the highway. With an over exaggerated sigh, she leaned over and quickly kissed Spike on the cheek. "There, that was sweet, right?"  
  
Spike nodded. "And it would've been much more sweet if you hadn't stuck your nose in my eye."  
  
As Buffy put the car into drive and continued up the ramp, Dawn smiled, satisfied, and returned to her seat. "Well, that's a start," she said. "Especially considering the huge mental problems the both of you have."  
  
"She's a demon," Buffy muttered. "It's the only explanation." And she merged onto the highway that would take them to Michigan.  
  
tbc 


	13. Part Thirteen

Redeeming Spike's Ass  
  
Part Thirteen  
  
*Some information taken from http://www.alpacas.com/ (The really funny part of this is that I called up my sister while she was at a meeting, and the other people at the meeting heard her say: "Alpacas ...a - l - p - a - c - a - s...okay, bye.")*  
  
  
  
  
The motel was substantially better than the one they'd stayed in the previous night. There was a double bed with a down comforter, a table, two chairs, and a couch that faced a television set. The bathroom had a tub, instead of the usual motel stand-up shower, and an abundant supply of thick, white towels. A large picture window looked out on a wide, flat landscape, decorated with plump summer trees, grassy fields, and a Super K-Mart.   
  
As Spike went through his clothes, beating the dust out of each somber-colored t-shirt and then tossing it on the table, he thought that this room, with its ample cushiony spaces, large shower including shelves and ledges, and waist-high table, would be the perfect place for some marathon shagging.  
  
Except...  
  
She walked in with her head down and tossed her duffel bag on one of the chairs. "It's a nice room," she said. "Everything's so cheap in Illinois." Spike watched her open her bag and remove a toothbrush. He remained standing in the narrow area between the bed and the dresser, effectively blocking the path to the bathroom. But as she walked by him, as she brushed against his arm and he felt the warmth of her skin even through the leather jacket, she still didn't raise her eyes.  
  
"Dawn found some menus in the dresser and wigged at the Starbucks prices," she called from the bathroom. "We're gonna have to do mochas in the morning."  
  
"Get out."  
  
"Huh?" she shouted over the running water.  
  
Spike walked up to the partially-closed door and pushed it open, the force of his blow so powerful that the door banging into the countertop and bounced back to his hand. "Get *out*!" he shouted, leaning towards Buffy threateningly, the muscles in his jaw and neck tensing with anger. "I won't have you prancing around here, chatting like we're friends, when you barely want to look at me." He took a step towards her, and she backed away from him, her expression blank. "Go stay with your sister, because if you lie next to me and cringe when I touch you, I'll snap your bloody neck in your sleep."  
  
She took another step back and her legs banged against the bathtub. When she looked at him finally, her eyes were hard. "Why stop there?" she said bitterly. "Why not throw me on the floor and tear my clothes off while you're at it?"   
  
Spike felt a chill go through his body. The silence was so devastating that he could hear the hum of the electricity, the ticking of the clock behind him, and each of her angry breaths. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. "Just get out," he said, and he turned and stormed out of the bathroom.  
  
*  
  
"Then there was The Byzantine Empire," Anya said. "Everything was Constantine this and Constantine that. I never met the man, but I did meet one of the sons, Constantine II. Well, not so much 'met' as 'brutally killed'. Fun fact: his real name was Flavius. He cheated on his wife, so I turned him and his brother Constans against each other so that he'd end up gutted. And by the way, how unoriginal is it to name both your sons after you? Ego much?"  
  
Wesley took off his glasses, placed them on the table, and rubbed his eyes. "Anya, when I asked you to tell me about yourself, I didn't mean -"  
  
"Shouldn't you be taking notes?" she interrupted, frowning. "This is important historical information. It needs to be preserved for the watchers and stuff, right?" Her eyebrows raised in alarm. "Unless you're all planning on killing me, since I'm a demon."  
  
"I'm not -"  
  
"Don't make me go all ugly veiny-face on you," Anya said, pointing a finger threateningly.  
  
"I think the veiny face is pretty," Clem said as he walked in from the Summers' kitchen, holding a box of crackers.  
  
"Thank you," Anya said with a smile. She gestured across the table. "The Watcher was giving me lip about being a demon."  
  
Clem shook his head sadly as he sat down next to her. "It's terrible how prejudiced people can be about our kind. Wheatable?" he asked, holding the box out.  
  
"I am not prejudiced!" Wesley shouted. "I work with several demons. Some of my best friends are demons."   
  
"They always say that," Anya whispered to Clem.  
  
  
"And as I said before," Wesley added. "I'm no longer a part of the Watchers' Council." He gestured to the books in the center of the table. "Now can we focus please? Buffy and the others will be in Michigan tomorrow afternoon, and we need to figure out what they're facing.  
  
"Oooo!" Clem held his hand up excitedly, only lowering it when Wesley nodded at him, indicating that he could speak. "Big evil things."  
  
"Uh....yes," Wesley said. "Very good, Clem. However, we need to know exactly *which type* of big evil thing, so that we can instruct Buffy on how to kill it."  
  
"Don't worry," Anya said through a mouthful of crackers. "I already figured that out."  
  
"What?" Wesley asked. "When?"  
  
"Just now, as I was eating Wheatables." Anya turned to Clem. "And thank you for sharing; these are fabulous." She took another one out of the box and held it up. "It's all wheaty, and has these little flecks of deliciousness. See?"  
  
"Anya!" Wesley shouted. "Could we not discuss snack food while the fate of the world hangs in the balance?"  
  
"Fine," Anya said, rolling her eyes. "Okay, so shortly before I came to Sunnydale, I spent a few years in the South. And one spring in ninety....three, I think, I was in Texas, cursing this guy who secretly made a video of him and his girlfriend having sex, and then sold it."  
  
Beside her, Clem gasped. "What a jerk!"  
  
"I know," Anya said. "But he won't be operating a video camera anymore, what with him having no fingers now. Anyway, right after I cursed that guy I got summoned by this police officer to curse her husband. But one of my demon friends was having a little get-together in Arash Ma'har, so I was a bit late. By the time I got to her, there was this whole big situation with some cult in a building. You know, cops, feds, mayhem, mayhem, mayhem, and my woman's nowhere to be found. So I just stick around to see the show, and before long I realize that I'm not the only demon in the area.  
  
"My first thought was Halfrek. She was always trying to upstage me, so it'd figure that I would take off a man's fingers, and then she'd try to kill hundreds of people, just to show off. So I transport inside the building, where the demon-vibe is strongest. But instead of finding Hallie, I find Eniwder."  
  
"Eniwder?" Wesley asked. He opened one of the nearby books and began paging through it. "I don't remember that name."  
  
"You're not going to find him in any of your books," Anya told him. "Very few demons have ever seen him, and I doubt any humans have. He's not like a vampire, or even a spirit. He exists only as energy, drawing it from whatever sources he can, and using it to influence people. Kind of like that Thesulac paranoia demon. And, like all demons, his ultimate goal is death and destruction."  
  
"That's not my ultimate goal," Clem pointed out.  
  
"So I run into Eniwder, and he's all - " Anya put her hands up, mimicking claws, and lowered her voice. "'Paltry vengeance demon! Leave this place before my torment rains down upon you blah blah blah.' Of course, I still bug him a little, cause you gotta keep up with the latest evil. I find out that his thing is cults. He uses electrical energy to manipulate people's minds, gets them to join a cult, and then slaughters them all. So while I'm there, he uses his energy to start a fire, and everyone dies."  
  
"Good," Wesley said. "Oh...not good that everyone died. But good that we know what we're fighting. So how do we kill this Eniwder?"  
  
Anya shrugged. "That's the problem. He's energy, not flesh. Shove a stake in him and it'll just fall out the other side."  
  
"Still, this knowledge could be helpful to them." Wesley stood up. "Anya, I believe they'll be calling you soon; will you fill them in?"  
  
Anya nodded. "But if you want to do another meeting thing tomorrow, we have to do it at the Magic Box; I don't like closing early."  
  
"Fine," Wesley said. "I'll see you both tomorrow." And he walked out of the room, signaling that the conference was finished.  
  
"So," Clem said, rising from his seat. "Where are you off to tonight?"  
  
"Big, lonely apartment where there are too many dishes to do," Anya said. "You?"  
  
"Humid, empty crypt that smells like I might've left a dead kitten underneath the recliner." Clem replied.  
  
They paused for a moment, looking at each other.  
  
"Wanna go to a bar?" Clem asked.  
  
  
  
*  
  
Apparently, alpacas were the synthesis of a miracle, an earth-friendly investment, and an important part of Spike's future. Or so the television was telling him.  
  
The small animal looked like a cross between a pony, a llama, and a Lohtnemmelas demon that Spike stole a double-headed axe from in Edinburgh in the 1920s. Overall, very creepy, even to a hardened bloodsucking fiend such as himself. Of course, he had to concede that said fiend was currently not so much sucking blood as he was mixing it with rum and drinking it from a plastic motel cup.   
  
Alpacas, Spike was learning, have not only a luscious cashmere-like fleece, but are also good for companionship. They are surprisingly smart, mild, and loving, though they do tend to spit. They can get along well with sheep and other livestock, and are easy to care for.   
  
"Buy your alpaca today!" The infomercial bellowed. "They are stress-resistant, load and travel calmly, and can be transported in the family mini van, station wagon, or horse trailer. Prices vary, but a castrated male can be purchased for as little as five hundred dollars! Alpaca breeding allows for wealth building, while deferring tax on your investment's increased value. To order your alpaca, call 1-503-ALPACAS. That's 1-503-ALPACAS. Order now!"  
  
  
Spike switched off the TV when he heard a knock on the door. "Bugger off," he said.  
  
There was a squeaking sound as the picture window opened, and then the curtains parted to reveal Dawn. She pulled her body inside, brushed off her cotton pajama bottoms decorated with cartoon monkeys, and then stood with her hands on her hips, eyes burning angrily. "What did you do?"   
  
"Nothing," Spike said defensively.  
  
"She's sitting on the bed, staring off into space, picking the Pale Pink Passion off her fingernails." Dawn walked up to the side of the bed and looked down at Spike sternly. "Remember the whole 'I'll kill you if you hurt her' conversation? What were you - "  
  
"She doesn't love me."  
  
He looked down at his hands, and closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. "Said she does, and I thought that's all I wanted, but this...having her say it and still not mean anything by it, this is worse. Worse than anything."  
  
Dawn sat down on the edge of the bed, and reached out to lay her hand gently on the side of his face. "Spike..." He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. Dawn gently moved her hand to the top of his head, and smacked him. "Get over yourself."  
  
"What the bloody - ?"  
  
Dawn stood up and glared down at him, managing to appear towering and intimidating in spite of her monkey pants. "Do you think it's easy for her? Buffy's had some of the crappiest relationships ever, not to mention all the Slayer stuff she has to deal with. You know what happened with my mom, with Riley, with Angel even. Over and over again, she's lost everything, but she always pulls herself up and deals. Now her best friends are off in another country, less than a year ago she crawled out of her own grave, she just quit her job and she's practically broke, she's got me to take care of, Willow to worry about, Tara to mourn, and - oh yeah - she has to save the world four times before Tuesday."  
  
Spike leaned back against the headboard, stretching his legs down the length of the bed. "Poor tiny Slayer," he muttered. "Doesn't mean I have to hand the bitch my balls on a platter."  
  
"This has nothing to do with your...parts. You're a hundred and twenty-something years old, Spike; act like a grown-up for once. She doesn't need a moody vampire with a soul. She needs someone to be there for her, to support her emotionally, and back her up in a fight too. She needs someone who cares about her even if she *is* a little screwed up. If you really loved her, you'd love her not only when she's happy and kissing and stuff, but when she's having a hard time too." Dawn sat down on the edge of the bed again, but her voice remained commanding. "Actually, you should love her *extra* then, because that's when she really needs it. And if you can't see that, if you're so wrapped up in your needy little All-About-Spike world, then you *never* loved her."  
  
"Stop it. Stop...making sense," Spike argued weakly.  
  
  
"Spike," Dawn said, looking at him with determined eyes. "Love is forever, and no matter what. That's how my mom loved me, and that's how I love Buffy, and how I love you too." She looked down at her hands. "You hurt my sister, and you left, and I still loved you, because that's just how it works."  
  
"Oh, shut up already, you aggravating little girl," Spike groaned, pulling her into a hug. "Where'd you learn how to be all pushy and self-righteous?"  
  
  
"From you," Dawn said as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Of course, living with Buffy helped a lot too."   
  
*  
  
The sky was just beginning to turn pink with morning when Spike heard the click of the door unlocking. He was lying in bed, lights and television off, staring at the ceiling. He didn't move as he heard her enter, her footsteps impossibly soft as she made her way to the bed. He heard the rustle of her clothing being removed. His eyes still fixed on the ceiling, he could sense her apprehension, her resentment, and underneath it all, a constant weariness. Or maybe that was all inside of him.  
  
She got into the bed and covered herself with the blanket, her movements so careful that, had he been asleep, it wouldn't have woken him. She positioned her body so that it was as far away from his as possible, and lay mirroring him, on her back, looking upwards blankly at the plaster as it slowly illuminated with the daylight. And Spike thought:  
  
*I can't do this, can't lie like this, where I can't touch you, pretending that I don't need to. And even if what your sister says is true, it isn't enough for me, to just have the pieces of you. Sometimes I think I'd rather die than exist an arm's length away, and sometimes I think I'd rather kill you.*  
  
And then there was a warmth at his chest, so small that he barely noticed it, and when he finally tore his eyes from the ceiling he saw her hand there, fingertips and the heel of her palm only lightly grazing his bare skin, though she still didn't turn her head. And then, in an instant, she returned her hand to her side, and he was left without any thoughts at all.  
  
He turned on his side to watch her, lying with her eyes open, deathly still. He covered her stomach with his hand, and felt it rise and fall subtly with shallow breaths.   
  
The room was so quiet that even his whisper seemed obscenely loud. "What do you need?"   
  
She remained still, but he imagined that even in the fading darkness he could see her eyes filling with sadness. "To sleep," she whispered flatly. And he kept his hand on her soft stomach long after she finally let herself rest.   
  
  
tbc 


	14. Part Fourteen

Redeeming Spike's Ass  
by Valerie X  
Part Fourteen  
"Ever got your heart broken?"  
  
Clem smiled over top of the two decorative umbrellas in the large, pink drinks that he was carrying to their table. "You mean recently, or in the past three hundred years?"   
  
Anya accepted the odd-looking drink from him. "You were at my wedding, right?"  
  
He nodded a little too enthusiastically. "Yeah. That was a beautiful ceremony. Very nice. You know, until the big fight." He took a sip of his drink. "And the groom leaving."  
  
Anya took the paper umbrella out of her glass and spun it between her thumb and forefinger absently. "So tell me about your miserable breakups. It'll make me feel better to know that other people are suffering too."   
  
Clem shrugged. "There were a lot when I was younger. But I guess the worst was my last girlfriend. She was a vampire. Beautiful girl, and she was so sweet. You know, for someone who's evil."  
  
Anya took a large gulp of the frozen concoction.  
  
"So things went well for a while," Clem continued. "We'd go out to the movies a lot, or sometimes just sit in my apartment, watch TV, and share a cat. I guess the problem was she didn't tell me when things were bothering her. She was quiet a lot, so I figured everything was fine. But she was unhappy, and I had no idea." He shook his head disapprovingly. "I hate that, when women don't honestly tell you what's on their mind."  
  
"Me too," Anya said.  
  
Clem took a long sip of his drink and then stared down into it sadly. "She was cheating. She said it wasn't cheating, it was just feeding, just what vampires do. But..." He lowered his voice, as if ashamed. "But they were paying her. Humans were paying her to bite them. She didn't even kill them. It was like she was a...working girl. You know?"  
  
"I think I've heard of those places," Anya said, though she couldn't remember when.  
  
"Now, personally, I like humans," Clem said. "And if they're your source of food, hey, I'm not one to judge. But that's all it's supposed to be - food. Taking money from them just seemed so dirty. I asked her to stop, but she said she liked it, liked the power and the darkness of it all." He shrugged. "I guess I just wasn't evil enough for her."  
  
"I get that," Anya said. "I mean, I was trying to talk to this Anomovic demon at the Bronze one day and he was all, 'Oh, I've heard of you, Anyanka. You used to be the baddest vengeance demon ever, and now you barely murder anyone.' Like I was a loser or something. I still hurt people, you know." She raised her voice defensively. "Like last month, this woman wished her boyfriend would buy the farm, and I made him actually buy a farm. Now he has to clean up pig crap every day, and wear overalls." She nodded proudly. "Not *that's* vengeance."  
  
"Overalls," Clem said with a shudder.   
  
"I'm just so sick of dating on the Hellmouth," Anya continued. "All the hot vampires I meet think I don't kill people enough, and all the humans are afraid of me. You're either too evil for them or not evil enough."  
  
"I know," Clem agreed. "So I don't want to destroy the entire world. That doesn't make me any less of a demon."  
  
"It's prejudice," Anya said, pointing her umbrella at him to emphasize her point. "Like you said before." She dropped the umbrella to the table and drained the rest of her frozen drink in one gulp. "We should have a protest."  
  
Clem nodded as he used his umbrella to slowly stir his rapidly melting drink.   
  
"What happened to her?" Anya asked softly.  
  
Clem looked up, surprised at the question. "What?"  
  
"Your girlfriend," she said. "The vampire who paid humans. You broke up with her? You...left her?"  
  
"She left me," Clem said. "Completely left me. We argued, and then she walked out of my apartment, and..." He shrugged sadly. "I never saw her again." He leaned forward to look into his drink, and frowned at how much of it remained. "I thought about her for a long time. Even tried to find some of her friends, but it was like they all disappeared. So I figured she didn't want to be found. I guess I just...I just hope she's okay."  
  
Anya lowered her head slightly, uncomfortable with his sudden show of emotion. "We should go," she told him. "It's getting late, time when the seriously evil things come out and play."  
  
Clem tore his gaze from his unfinished drink and stood up quickly. "Want me to walk you home?"  
  
"Nah," Anya said as she gathered her things. "I'll be fine."  
  
Anya put on her jacket and slung her purse over her shoulder, but Clem made no more to exit the bar. She raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, and he smiled shyly.  
  
"Will you walk me home?"  
  
*  
  
It's cold in the graveyard, in a bed with a dead body. Without opening her eyes, she knows it's very late, one of those hours where even the monsters are asleep, where the darkness is so thick that the world seems silent, dead. She hears that word echo in her mind: dead, dead, I want to be dead. I want to lie here, buried in a crypt, cold and dead.   
  
But the corpse next to her stirs, and she almost sobs at the realization that she's still alive, and the dead person beside her is moving.  
  
His hand touches her thigh, and her muscles jerk reflexively. She has bruises there - bruises everywhere, actually. They'll fade throughout the next day, be gone this time tomorrow, and this thought makes her angry. Furious. Who made this rule that she would always be healed, be restored, be resurrected? What makes her so disgustingly immortal? She wants her bruises, and her pain. She wants to suffer. She wants to die.  
  
A whisper. "Did I hurt you?"   
  
She almost laughs at this. How he says it, as if she hadn't, at some point during their night together, raked her teeth over his ear and growled, "Hurt me." But her humor turns to guilt quickly as she realizes that, whatever sexual pleasure he got from inflicting pain, he probably would've preferred not to.   
  
I made him hurt me. I make monsters even more evil. This horrible power that curses me to live forever, and fight forever, comes from something so dark that I can force a vampire to be more evil than he wants to be. I must be something so terrible, so depraved...  
  
When he kisses her, soft cool lips barely brushing against her cheek, her body tenses with rage.  
  
You love me because I'm dark, and wicked; because I'm more evil than you can ever be, with your too-human movements and breathing and lame drama-queen passions. You who would call a truce with the enemy because someone touched your girlfriend. You, the only vampire who ever came to Sunnydale and then decided *not* to destroy the world. You, who lived a hundred years brutally killing, thinking you were such a bad-ass. And then you find me, and I shock you with the depths I'm capable of. I show you darkness you never knew, and this is why you love me.  
  
A cold dead hand is still on her leg, cold dead lips still on her face, inert and lifeless with apprehension.  
  
But if you loved me, really loved me, you wouldn't do this. You wouldn't fuck me as cruelly as I need you to, and then kiss me with inhuman gentleness. You'd tell me to go. Turn me down. You wouldn't let me beg for pain, and wouldn't tolerate it when I hurt you back. You'd make me leave, make me face my suffering and overcome it.  
  
Or, if you love me as much as you claim to, love me beyond what I could imagine, you'd give me what I want. You know - hell, you were the one who figured it out - that I'm wrong, and you can hurt me. So hurt me. Kill me. You fucking idiot, I'm lying right here, bruised and half-asleep, night after night, and when we met you said, you *promised* that you'd kill me. So do it. It's what I need, what I deserve. Just tear open my throat and suck this horrible life out of me. It's what you do, isn't it? What the hell is wrong with you?   
  
And that's why I can never love you. You're pathetic, because I beg for pain and you can't turn me down. You're stupid, because you can't see a victim lying right in front of you. You're worthless, because I came to you for death and you won't let me die. And you're disgusting, because I'm disgusting, and you love me.  
"I don't."  
  
Buffy heard a weak groan and the dull thump of a body falling into a chair.  
  
"I don't, I'm telling you. Don't know anything about any Eniwder demon. Loopy bint's probably making it up."  
  
Buffy opened her eyes slowly, and saw a blurred and obviously aggravated Spike sitting at the nearby table, holding the telephone to his ear.  
  
"Really?" he said with mock interest. "Derived from the Latin, eh? Fascinating. Let me just take out my day planner and write that down so I can reference it later when I'm *pretending to give a bloody damn about the history of demon names!*" He banged his fist on the table. "Just tell me what it is, where it is, and how to kill it. Then, you can go prance away and bugger yourself until we call you again." After listening a moment, he grunted a goodbye and hung up the phone.  
  
Buffy rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed, drawing Spike's attention. "Sorry, luv, guess the bellowing ain't much conducive to sleeping."  
  
Buffy shook her head. "Time to get up anyway, right?" She gathered a sheet around her naked body and began to make her way to the bathroom.  
  
"Before I forget," Spike said, standing. "Eniwder demon, uses electrical energy for mind control, big with the cults, and destroying the world at the Flint Campground around eight tonight."  
  
Buffy turned around slightly and nodded.  
  
"And also -" He stopped short, his mouth opening and closing over an apology that refused to take shape.   
  
"Don't," Buffy said. "I mean, not now. I had some bad dreams....bad *memories* actually, and I just need..."  
  
His expression stopped her - a mixture of guilt and rejection. For a moment the room fell into silence as they both searched for words.  
  
"Coffee," she finished. "We could have some coffee, in the Starbucks. Sit together and...have coffee."  
  
"Sure," Spike said, still looking confused. "I'll just uh...go rouse the other one."  
  
"The other one?"  
  
Spike turned as the door opened and Dawn entered their room, carrying her backpack. Buffy only rolled her eyes and went into the bathroom, leaving Spike to defend himself.  
  
"I'm referred to as 'the other one'?" She asked, raising her eyebrows threateningly.   
  
Spike threw his hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Can't call you nibblet, can't call you tiny girl, can't call you mouthy little bitch -"  
  
Dawn folded her arms across her chest. "How about 'Dawn'? Or even better, you could call me 'Brilliant and Courageous Dawn, Mastermind of the Battle Ahead'. You know, since you two are so incredibly retarded."  
  
"Why are you lurking around doors anyway?" Spike countered.  
  
"Intelligence gathering," Dawn replied proudly. "Commonly known as snooping, very helpful in determining exactly how retarded you and my sister are."   
  
Spike smiled and sat down on the bed, shaking his head at her logic. "And exactly how retarded are we?"  
  
"Very." Dawn tossed her bag onto one of the chairs and leaned against it. "We need to check in with Sunnydale."  
  
"The pansy-ass just called," Spike told her. "Eniwder demon, mind control, gets people to join cults and kills them. So it looks like we're on the right track with this Team of Destiny thing."  
  
Dawn nodded. "So we go in undercover, see what's the what, find this demon, and take him out."  
  
"Not so fast, Brilliant and Courageous Dawn," Spike said sarcastically. "Won't be easy killing this one."  
  
"Sure it will," she said confidently. "You and Buffy attack him at once, and I can get it a few good shots with the crossbow."  
  
"No crossbow," Buffy said as she walked out of the bathroom, fully dressed and combing her hair. "You can help with the infiltrating stuff, but I don't want you fighting."  
  
"Oh, come on!" Dawn whined. "I've been patrolling with you all summer, and now I can't shoot some dumb arrows at a dumb demon?"  
  
"Arrows won't kill it," Spike told her. "Made up of energy."  
  
"And this isn't just some stupid vampire, no offense," Buffy said with a nod to Spike. "This is big time end of the world stuff."  
  
"So?" Dawn replied. "You remember that one really tough vampire a few weeks ago? I dusted him with the crossbow from like, a yard away."  
  
"You were not a yard away from him," Buffy argued. "Maybe like, three feet."  
  
"No, it was a *yard*!" Dawn yelled, her voice reaching an ear-shattering pitch.   
  
Buffy slammed her hairbrush down on the dresser with a bang. "It was *three feet*!"  
  
"A yard *is* three feet!" Spike roared as he stood up. "There are three feet in one yard. Were you both dropped on your heads as children?" He grabbed his meager pile of clothes from the table and shoved past both women, muttering under his breath as he exited into the hallway.  
  
Dawn frowned at Spike's retreating form. "Did he just call me a duck?"  
  
*  
  
It's loud in the graveyard, in a bed with a living body. The world outside the crypt is silent, the demons having ended whatever nightly destruction they'd chosen, and the time for new vampires to emerge from the earth has passed. It's so late that even the dead have stopped rising. After a night desperately clinging to whatever would satiate their hunger, the dead, including him, are finally still.  
  
But in the silence her life is deafening. The air traveling into her body and out again is as loud as a scream, the expansion of her chest rustling the bed sheets just enough for the movement to be audible, and he imagines he can even hear her blood moving. He's frozen, silent, just listening to the rhythm of how she lives. She breaths in, and he can hear the air move through her nose and then her lungs. She breaths out immediately, a hard sigh, her lips parting only slightly. The there's a moment when she doesn't breathe at all - just one brief moment when they are equally still, and then - the air rushes in abruptly, urgently. He could drive himself crazy this way, just laying here listening to this all night, anticipating each breath, obsessing over it, until his entire existence is nothing but the sound.  
  
But instinct takes over, and he shifts his body to keep from drowning in the resonance of breath. Her exhale falters; he's woken her, and for what seems like an eternity the only thought he has is a frantic 'don't leave!' The subsequent inhale is softer, uneasy, like consciousness.   
  
He reaches for her apprehensively, wishing he could fill his fingers with begging, so that when they brush her skin only lightly she hears his plea as loud as it echoes in his own mind. And he wonders if maybe she can feel this, because her thigh tenses the moment he touches it. Then he remembers - there must be bruises.  
  
"Did I hurt you?"  
  
She doesn't respond, but he knows she hears, because her breathing becomes just a bit faster. When he puts his lips to his face the breath hesitates again, as if threatening to stop.  
  
Her breathing makes him angry. Furious. Because he's dead, and he should want only to make her dead as well. He should delight in hurting her. Pin her down and lick her bruises afterwards, taste every wound he's inflicted and get drunk off the scent of her blood as it rises to the surface of her skin. He should laugh at her, this miserable little Slayer who sleeps with death.   
  
And sometimes he does. Sometimes, when their bodies are pressed together with brutal energy, he growls dirty little things into her pink little ears, chuckles at her desires, and bears down hard onto her precious living flesh. She shocks him with what she can take, what she can want. And she hurts him back, slams him hard into walls, and insults him with a viciousness that makes his body tingle. He should hate her, and sometimes he does.   
  
Your life is this excruciating, ever-present din, and yet you crave me; you crave death. You catch your breath in your throat like you're daring it to stop, and you expect me to listen for it, obsess over it, wrap my dead soul around your agonizing reflex. You want me to adore your living body while bringing it pain, because you know that's my nature, that's what I'm made for. I worship blood, life, because I crave it blindly, and I hate life at the same time, because I need to destroy it to sustain my own shadow of a life. And this, to you, is the only love I can produce, and the only love you can tolerate.   
  
Because if I loved you, really loved you, I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't take the life you give to me in frenzied panting and sleepy sighs. If I really loved you my body wouldn't swell at the thought of making you moan with pleasure while you cry out in pain. I hurt you, and I like it. I want you, and I take you, though you never really give yourself to me. I know you come to me for death, but I take your despair as affection, because it's all I have.   
  
And that's why you'll never love me. I'm evil, because you want to be hurt and I can't turn you down. I'm worthless, because I want to make you feel better but all I know how to do is fuck you. And I'm stupid, because I cling to you, and you don't love me.  
"But I do."  
  
Spike heard an angry sigh and the sound of a turn signal clicking on.  
  
"I do, really. I trust you with weapons, Dawn," Buffy said. "I'd just rather not have you in the middle of an apocalypse."  
  
Spike opened his eyes and saw a sign that read "Flint Campgrounds" through the side window, as they sped along in the direction of the sign's white arrow.   
  
"Oh, but I can be *adjacent* to an apocalypse?"  
  
"Exactly," Buffy said. "Besides, you're way better at lying than I am. I need you to be undercover girl while I look around and figure out what to kill."  
  
After a glance out the window to make sure the sun was almost completely set, Spike tossed the blanket off of him and sat up in the backseat, his head spinning.   
  
"Fine," Dawn groaned. "But can I at least have a weapon in my backpack? Just in case?"  
  
"Fine," Buffy said. She paused at a stop sign and turned to look at Spike. "You awake?"  
  
"Uh...yeah," he replied, running a hand back through his hair.   
  
Buffy noticed his tired eyes and frowned. "Dreams?"  
  
"Something like that," he muttered. He blinked and met her eyes, forcing a determined look. "I'm good."  
  
"We're nearly there," she said, turning back and continuing down the road. "  
  
He reached underneath the seat to remove the remains of the previous day's dinner: a slightly dented box with a few remaining Krispy Kremes in them. At the sound of the rustling of cardboard, Dawn turned in her seat, her eyes widening at the sight.  
  
"Spike has donuts!" she gasped.  
  
"That's right," Spike said as he set the box down in his lap. "Key word there being *Spike*. *Spike* has donuts, therefore, the donuts belong to Spike."  
  
Dawn's eyes narrowed into a viscous glower. "You have to share. Buffy, doesn't he have to share?"  
  
The car turned off the road and into a dusty parking lot. "We're here," Buffy said, ignoring her sister. She put the car in park, reached down for the trunk release, and got out, slamming the driver's side door behind her.  
  
Just beyond the parking lot there was a tent set up, and they could see at least a hundred people moving among rows of folding chairs underneath it. It looked like a normal gathering of friends, except for the makeshift stage: a crude plywood landing rising four feet off the ground and stretching the length of the tent at one end. It was partially covered with red fabric, and at the back of the stage a ten-foot wooden cross loomed.   
  
As Spike was distracted by the potential dangers of the set-up, Dawn reached into the backseat and grabbed onto one corner of the box.  
  
"Let go of my donuts," he warned her in a low, hostile voice.  
  
"Give me one, and I'll let go," Dawn said with a smirk.  
  
Spike sneered right back at her. "Let go, or I'll rip your arms off."   
  
Buffy looked thoughtfully into the trunk, trying to choose a weapon. A demon made of energy with a horde of human minions would take a lot, but her weapons had to go undetected until the demon revealed himself, so axes were out. She decided on a stake and a few knives, which she was able to easily carry in her pockets. She emptied Dawn's backpack out and shoved a crossbow inside, and then chose a sword for Spike, since he could probably conceal that in his jacket.   
  
After shutting the trunk, Buffy turned and took in the scene. This demon used his powers for mind control, so all those people in the tent - people she'd be fighting soon - were innocents. If Wesley's prophecies were right, and if they didn't annihilate this creature, it meant the not only their deaths, but also the first stage in the destruction of the entire world.   
  
Buffy smiled. It had been a crappy year, and there were a lot of things she was unsure of right now: the future of her best friend, the well-being of her sister, the relationship she'd entered into, and even her own emotional state. But there was one thing she was completely confident about - that she could face evil, and kick its ass.  
  
"Okay, everyone," she announced proudly. "Let's go save the world."  
  
Hoisting the sword high, she turned back to the car, where she saw Dawn and Spike sitting there with powdered sugar on their shirts, each with a ripped half of a Krispy Kreme box in their hands.  
TBC 


End file.
